LifeSiteNews.com Meg Jalsevac November 14, 2006
Touted as pro-life and pro-family moderate who values his Catholic faith.
Within 24 hours of winning the bitter Pennsylvanian Senate race against incumbent Republican Rick Santorum, Democrat Senator-elect Bob Casey, Jr. let his real agendas show through. Citizenlink.org has reported that, the very day after the election, Casey announced that he would work in support of legislation to increase the scope of federal hate crimes law to encompass sexual orientation and gender identity as a victim group.
Casey was chosen by the Democratic party to run against Santorum because of his supposedly moderate Democratic views. Throughout the election race, Casey’s campaign touted him as a pro-life and pro-family moderate candidate who valued his Catholic faith.
However, Casey was immediately and unabashedly backed in his election bid by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), a pro-gay activist group. On the HRC website, it claims “HRC flexed its political muscle and launched an extensive and strategic campaign in partnership with local organizations that resulted in a clear victory for fair-minded candidate Casey.”
According to the website, HRC raised over $375,000 for Casey’s campaign. It also claims that it supplied 4 office staffers and hundreds of volunteers to encourage Pennsylvanians to vote.
Casey thanked HRC the day after the election saying, “HRC got behind my campaign early and has been a tremendous help. I look forward to working with HRC’s incredible staff and membership, especially to advance hate-crimes legislation in the Senate.” In several election surveys Casey admitted that he opposed gay marriage but that he would support homosexual unions.
In October of last year, Casey was quoted in The Philadelphia Jewish Voice as saying “I don’t support gay marriage, but I also don’t support a constitutional amendment banning it. That would be tremendously divisive. However, I do support same sex unions that would give gay couples all the rights, privileges and protections of marriage.”
Casey also admitted in similar surveys that he would support legislation that would increase penalties for crimes committed against an individual because of their sexual orientation.
Diane Gramley, president of the American Family Association of Pennsylvania, said, “It didn’t take long for his true colors to show throw. Too Many Pennsylvanians were misled and misinformed by Mr. Casey’s campaign rhetoric.”
Adding sexual orientation verbage to hate-crime legislation is a threat to the First Amendment rights of all Americans who oppose homosexuality. Gramley said, “Right here in Pennsylvania we know what hate- crimes legislation that includes ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ can mean to Christians. In 2004 we witnessed 11 Christians being arrested and charged with a hate crime for simply reading Scripture and singing choruses at a homosexual event.”
The event that Gramley referred to happened in October 2004 when 11 Christian protestors were arrested and held in jail for 21 hours on various charges. The protesters were protesting OutFest, a homosexual festival held in Philadelphia. The protesters were swarmed by members of a homosexual group but only the Christian protesters were taken into custody by police.
Soon after the event, it surfaced that the homosexual group had planned their actions well before the actual event. The coordinator of the homosexual event said “It’s our event, and we’re not going to permit vendors or community groups that conflict with the theme of the event.” He also publicly admitted that their actions infringed on the First Amendment rights of the Christians. No charges were brought against any of the homosexual individuals.
Santorum, decisively beaten by a 20% margin by Casey, was nationally renowned for his conservative views, especially on issues of life and family. He had previously voted against legislation that had attempted to include sexual orientation under the hate-crime umbrella.
Too late, Pennsylvania voters are finding out the hard way that Senator-elect Casey’s actions will speak much louder than his words.
Note 46. For clarification: the scripture does not say money is the root of all evil, it says the love of money is the root of all evil. And, as James points out, no one is exempt from the temptation. In fact, the scripture warns Christian leaders about it specifically:
The “leaders” James cites are not bishops of course, but the moral exhortation still stands.
Post 47: “First, to be guilty of a hate crime, one must commit a crime. No crime, no hate crime.”
That may be true here, now, but remember that any action can be legislated to be a crime. In Canada, reading New Testament passages that mention homosexuality in a negative light in public is a crime. Canada also has freedom of speech. There are many advocates in the US of limiting free speech such that it does not include “hate speech.” The problem is that one person’s reasoned opinion looks like hate to another person. Do we really want the government trying to divine the difference between the two, when it can punish physical crimes as harshly as it wants?
Post 47: “With any statute one can make a slippery slope argument, but those arguments only make sense when there is a compelling reason to believe that the slippery slope would actually occur; the mere possibility of the slippery slope is certainly not compelling reason.”
I need not look further than Canada, much of Europe, many American universities and law schools, and certain left-wing members of the California General Assembly. I’m not going to go through tons of examples, but in my opinion the slippery slope argument is compelling. One example were political-correctness speech codes adopted by Stanford University back in the 1990s, until they got afraid of being sued. The point is that there are many “experts” who advocate punishment of what they deem to be “hate” speech, including something as innocuous as the long-used gender-neutral pronoun.
Post 47: “In effect, it was a terrorist crime committed against the black community not just in Portland, but in all areas of the country in which white supremacist organizations operated.”
If it was a terrorist crime, the punishments can be made more severe by using anti-terrorism laws. It would seem that W.A.R. meets the definition of a terrorist group that you cited later. If they demand terrorist acts as a right of initiation, not only could the murderer be punished more severely, but the other members of the terrorist organization could be punished more severely. There are already legal methods to punish heinous crimes more severely than, say, a guy who snaps and murders a fellow who has been caught having an affair with his wife. This being the case, why does anyone want hate crime statutes? A good number of the advocates want them because they criminalize thought, in addition to other laws that already criminalize violence and terrorist acts.
Post 47: “To say that the perpetrators and encouragers of the crime merely ‘disapproved’ of blacks is ridiculous.”
I agree. These terrorists obviously hated the objects of their crimes. The problem is that, as mentioned in Post 45, that some reasoned arguments are equated by various parties as hate. For example, many people find St. Paul’s stance on homosexuality as hate. Others equate opposition to immigration, which can be motivated either by bigotry or by concern about the ability of a country to successfully assimilate immigrants, as hate in every case.
Post 47: “In other words, your argument against hate crime law would work equally as well as an argument against domestic terrorism law.”
I don’t believe so. I established back in Post 37 that hate crime statutes actually punish thought (whether hate or not) and nothing else. Of course, they cannot be triggered without a crime, at least not yet (not true in Europe and Canada, and a large number of CA legislators want to join the Canadians in this), but they do punish a person’s thought or hate. Anti-terrorism laws do not punish people for being opposed to the government. They don’t punish people for believing that a society should be intimidated. They punish people for using violence to intimidate or coerce the society or government. What they do not do is punish individuals because they simply disapprove of or hate the government or the people of the United States.
Should the government punish people because they hate one group or another, or perhaps because they hate their mother-in-law? No. An attempt by the government to legislate the realm of thought is ill-advised, in my opinion, because even if it starts out only being pertinent when connected with, say, murder, by criminalizing certain lines of disapproval or hatred it logically follows that other expressions of disapproval or hate, say, offending someone, should be turned into a crime.
Note 50. James, take the statistics in the context of the discussion. The main point is that gays suffer more from the hand of other gays than they do heterosexuals, just like black suffer greater violence from blacks, or even whites from whites. Again, if violence is the real concern here (hate crime advocates are less concerned with violence than with codifying political correctness), then deal with the violence where it most often occurs.
Exactly the point. Other types of assaults do indeed exist, but by far most violence is a function of the relationship between attacker and victim. Again, if hate crime advocates are as concerned about violence toward gays, women, and other victim groups du jour as they say, then deal with the violence where it occurs instead of trying to restructure the legal code to conform to their politically correct thinking. Remember, the purpose of hate crime legislation is to use the law to win social approval of homosexuality rather than stem violence against homosexuals.
“hate crimes laws should not care WHO is being attacked, they only look at factors surrounding the intent of the act that might indicate the person is a graver threat to a larger number of people. Thus, different recommendations for sentencing might be in order.”
This already exists! This is the law! This is what we have with different degrees of murder (e.g. first degree vs. second degree vs. manslaughter). Now, what does “hate crime” really add to the existing law? Just what Fr. Jacobse says it will, the “victim de jur”. I wish those arguing for hate crimes would stop the double talk here and admit what they are after – this duplicity is unbecoming…
I’m dating myself, but all this talk about hate crimes reminds me of an old Tom Lehrer song, National Brotherhood Week. One of the lines went something like this: “OH the white folks hate the black folks, and the black folks hate the white folks, to hate all but the right folks is an old established rule….All of my folks hate all of your folks and everybody hates the Jews” (Mr. Lehrer was a Jew)
Have a blessed and joyous Thanksgiving with no hate in your heart for anyone–even those damned (Fill in the blank) who just refuse to understand!
note 55.
Someone cut me off in traffic (driving very aggressively)! They are hateful! If you drive with hate (or just plain aggressiveness – it’s what the person intended of course), instead of just a speeding ticket, they should get extra penalty! They hate normal drivers!!!
Everyone have a very joyous thanksgiving!! Since my “jurisdiction” does not recognize America, we of course have no liturgy…perhaps someday, when the ethnic captivity ends…
Christopher, maybe its because they do recognize America and that on Thanksgiving we give thanks to ourselves rather than God.
In any case in Indianapolis, my convert brother who serves in a Bulgarian parish (old calendar) is going to concelebrate with a Lebanese-American priest at an ethincally Lebanese, Antiochian parish (new calendar). Maybe we ought to all move to Indy.
Note 53.
How can that be true (“the purpose of hate crime legislation”) when the article cited about indicates that Casey is attempting to increase the scope of existing hate crime legislation to include sexual orientation?
I’ll acknowledge that the purpose of _including_ sexual orientation into hate crime legislation is largely symbolic, but a lot of laws have intentional communicative value.
Note 58. If I understand the question correctly…
Hitching homosexuality to the civil rights wagon makes it appear as if social disapproval of homosexuality is tantamount to discrimination against homosexuals in the same way racism worked against blacks. Thus, hate crimes are really an effort to win social sanction for homosexuality.
You should know I think the connection between gay rights and the Civil Rights Movement is illegitimate (see: Gay Marriage Far Removed From Civil Rights Movement), and I don’t support “hate crime” legislation for Blacks either. The entire concept is dubious at best and dangerous at worst.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Note 59.
I’m trying to reconcile two statements. Here, you write:
Earlier, you said:
It sounds as though you hold the belief that “disapproval of gays” is more justified than “disapproval of blacks.” That’s a commonly held belief, I’ll grant, but it sounds like you are saying specifically and directly that one group should be elevated over another.
Happy Thanksgiving!
What do the quotes signify? I didn’t say “disapproval of gays”, I said “disapproval of homosexuality”. If that’s unclear, it means the moral disapproval of homosexual behavior. I didn’t say “disapproval of blacks” either.
I am arguing that cultural disapproval of homosexual behavior is not synonomous with racism. Therefore, it is illegitimate to collapse gay rights into the Civil Rights Movement. Did you read the article?
In that case, what’s your argument opposing hate crime legislation regarding gays? Early you cited the ills of “identity politics,” but if you’re going to separate “gays” from “gay behavior,” then it sounds like hate crime laws are fair–_anyone_, straight or gay, can engage in “gay behavior,” and thus the laws are equally protecting all citizens.
For some reason, the phrase “I disapprove of homosexual behavior, not homosexuals” reminds me of the statement, “I don’t have a problem with jews, as long as they don’t go to temple.”
Note 62. Phil, I can’t make any sense of the first paragraph. Could you explain your point with a bit more detail? I think you are confusing two separate points: 1) hate crime law, and 2) hooking gay activism to the Civil Rights Movement. In any case, I really can’t make heads or tails of it.
Also, the second paragraph is a non sequitur. The problem lies in the phrase “for some reason” I think. What reason did you have in mind?
Jacobse,
It’s interesting metadiscourse, trying to explain my explanation of my question about what you meant. But I’ll give it a shot:
On the one hand, you refer to hate crime law and dismiss “identity politics.” An identity would appear to be “the way an individual identifies herself.” As such, “gay” and “straight” and “Jew” might all be facets of identity politics.
In note 59, you wrote:
In note 61, you clarify:
Unless I’m misinterpreting you, “identity” would seem to refer to what someone is, as opposed to what someone does. So, when you say that hate crime laws are an attempt to win social approval for “homosexual behavior” (the phrase you substitute for homosexuality in note 61)– what does homosexual behavior have to do with identity? Someone “is” gay. They “engage in” gay behavior.
I don’t think the distinction is as important as you seem to indicate that it is.
To clarify why I don’t think it’s an important distinction, I draw an analogy. “I don’t have a problem with homosexuals as long as they don’t engage in homosexual behavior” is the same logic as “I don’t have a problem with Jews as long as they don’t go to temple.”
It’s the same logic as “I don’t have a problem with left-handers, as long as they write and throw baseballs with their right hands.”
Note 64. Phil writes:
Would you say the same thing about pedophiles? Why not?
Overlooking for the time being whether identity politics should even to be considered when crafting law, the difference between the homosexual and the Jew (or Black, Asian, European, whatever) is that the former defines identity by sexual behavior. Also, your implicit conclusion that going to temple is on a moral par with sodomy would be highly offensive to Jews and others (not to mention incorrect).
Fr. Hans writes: ” . . . the difference between the homosexual and the Jew (or Black, Asian, European, whatever) is that the former defines identity by his sexual behavior.”
First, a gay person does not necessarily engage in homosexual behavior. You could have someone who is gay but who never engages in homosexual activity, in the same way that you can have celibate heterosexuals. Homosexual orientation may or may not lead to homosexual activity.
Second, to the extent that a homosexual defines himself by sexual behavior, this is exactly how the heterosexual defines his identity.
But in the case of a hate crime, it’s not how the victim defines himself that matters; it’s how the attacker perceives the identity of the victim. It is the attacker’s perception that matters, not the actual identity of the victim. For example, a Lebanese Christian could be attacked because the criminal thought he was a Muslim. You could have a heterosexual attacked because the criminal thought he was a homosexual. Attacks based on a mistaken perception of identity are not uncommon.
But back to the original point that hate crime laws either infringe, or likely will lead to the infringement of freedom of speech —
I would find this line of argument more compelling if those on the right showed more concern with freedom of speech in general. Rather than looking at potential “slippery slopes,” I would note that right now the federal government increasingly functions as a censor and editor of mainstream programming — and often with the blessing of the religious right.
The FCC has the power to levy large fines against networks and individual stations that broadcast what the FCC considers to be “indecent,” “obscene,” or “profane.” In 2004 the FCC assessed penalties in the amount of $8 million. http://www.fcc.gov/eb/oip/
At this point a network can be fined millions of dollars even for incidental profanities, as in the case of Bono’s use of the “f” word during the 2003 Golden Globe awards. In that case the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau had ruled that incidental use of the “f” word in a non-sexual context was not a violation, but this was overturned by by the Commission: “The Commission overruled the Bureau decision and also concluded that other cases holding that isolated or fleeting use of the “F-word” are not indecent are no longer good law. The Commission further concluded that use of the “F-Word” in the context of the Golden Globe Awards was profane under 18 U.S.C. Section 1464.” http://www.fcc.gov/eb/News_Releases/DOC-245133A1.html
This led to a later situation in which TV stations were uncertain as to whether they would be subject to the FCC’s extraordinary fines for showing the movie Saving Private Ryan on Veteran’s Day: “approximately 66 of a total of 225 stations affiliated with ABC declined to air the film, citing their uncertainty as to whether it contained indecent material, reportedly based, in part, on Commission indecency rulings subsequent to these previous broadcasts of the film.” http://www.fcc.gov/eb/Orders/2005/FCC-05-23A1.html
The problem here was that the movie contained not merely incidental but multiple uses of the “f” word and many other similar words. Nonetheless, the FCC found that the use of these words was not indecent or profane because of the context in which they were used: “In so concluding, we find that this case is distinguishable from that in which we previously found the use of the word “f******” [the FCC document lists the actual word] during the broadcast of the 2003 Golden Globe Awards ceremony to be indecent and profane in context. The contextual differences between the expletives contained in the broadcast of the film here and that contained in the 2003 broadcast of the Golden Globe Awards ceremony are critical to our analysis … ” http://www.fcc.gov/eb/Orders/2005/FCC-05-23A1.html
So here you have a federal agency making determinations on whether the context of a program justifies a particular profanity, or whether it is dramatically necessary or gratuitous. If the FCC decides against the station, the result can be hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in fines, or loss of the broadcast license. This leaves stations and networks in the position of never really knowing when the iron hand of the government is going to come down upon them.
With regard to hate crimes statutes there has been great concern expressed over the “slippery slope” that could eventually lead to the criminalization of anti-homosexual speech. But ironically, there have been no comments related to actual, ongoing government censorship of existing programs. In a further irony, the most ardent support of such censorship comes from the religious right. Other than the Janet Jackson incident, 99 percent of all complaints received by the FCC originate from one group, the Parents Television Council, whose founder is a nephew of William F. Buckley, and who is also associated with various other right-wing organizations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Television_Council
So I have a hard time taking the free speech concerns seriously, when the religious right shows so little concern about current, active, and ongoing censorship by the federal government, and when they actually encourage it.
That really isn’t the case. A person can be homosexual whether they engage in sexual behavior or not, just as a person can be heterosexual whether they engage in sexual behavior or not. I am quite convinced that my childhood parish priest was a heterosexual male, despite the fact that I am also certain that he took his celibacy very seriously. I know several priests who are celibate who are also homosexual males.
It would be accurate to say that the difference between the categories of “homosexual” and “Jew” or “Asian” is that the first defines identity by sexual orientation.
But it would not be accurate to say that the difference between “a homosexual” and “a Jew” is the identification with a sexual orientation (or a behavior), because all Jews, all Asians, and all Europeans are also either homosexual or heterosexual. (or, as some evidence indicates, bisexual or asexual.) So all persons, regardless of race and religion, can be categorized by their sexual orientation and by their sexual behavior.
Note 66.
That’s fine, but it is not really what you are arguing. You want a moral parity between homosexuality and heterosexuality in the culture. It wouldn’t be necessary to reduce sexual orientation to a sociological construct otherwise. But, if one’s object of (sexual) desire is truly the source and and ground of self-identity, what about the pedophile?
I would. I’m no expert on pedophilia, and I can’t say that I’ve met any admitted pedophiles, but it seems self-evident that “having sex with a child” is a very different matter than “being a person who is attracted to children.”
One historical example of such a person might be Charles Dodgson, who wrote the “Alice in Wonderland” books under the pen name Lewis Carroll. If you read his published letters, you can’t escape the fact that he had an obsession with young girls, but no historical evidence exists that he ever touched a child in a sexual way. (He did, it should be noted, photograph a number of young girls nude, always asking their mothers’ permission first.)
And you, clearly, do not. So why not compromise, and we can settle on moral parity between homosexuality and heterosexuality in the laws?
I don’t think that the object of sexual desire is the source and ground of self-identity. I think that each human being identifies with a number of different categories, one of which is sexual orientation.
What about the pedophile? Are you asking how I can justify condemning child molestation if I think that pedophiles exist as a class of persons? There is nothing logically inconsistent about it. A child cannot give meaningful consent to sexual acts, so sex with children is also rape. It’s not the existence of the pedophile that matters in condemning him, nor the fact that he is a pedophile. It’s the actions he takes.
A heterosexual rapist deserves condemnation, moral and legal, because he has raped. The fact that he is attracted to women is not the issue, it’s the way he acts on that attraction.
A homosexual rapist deserves the same condemnation.
But a homosexual couple which engages in sexual activity have not wronged each other any more than all of the other consenting adult couples which find social disapproval. I might think it’s “wrong” for a fifty-year-old man to date a twenty-four-year-old woman, but so what? It would be colossal arrogance if I thought I should have any say in the matter.
Phil,
Consent is not an ethnicity it is a behavior. An African-American cannot “consent” to being African-American. A Hispanic cannot “consent” to behaviour that determines them to be Hispanic.
But consent is all that matters to Phil, because he does not recognize any hierarchy of values, no hierarchy of behavior and nothing to being beyond the mind and its apparent ability to choose what we each want to do. Once someone has reached the level of rationality that allows them to make cognitive choices, it does not matter what choice they make. If they make it, it is valid for them.
Community does not matter as it is at best a convient way for like minded, rational (more or less) evolved primates to exercies their choices in a more efficient manner.
I strongly suspect that he would also argue, at least tacitly, that without the cognitive ability, human life has little or no value.
Note 70. Phil writes:
Isn’t this a bit like saying “I don’t have a problem with jews, as long as they don’t go to temple” (Note 62).
Note 66. Jim writes:
I appreciate your concern for free speech Jim, but it rings a bit hollow when you want to criminalize thinking.
I’m not sure what your point is, JBL. Can you explain it better?
Note 73.
Isn’t this a bit like saying “I don’t have a problem with jews, as long as they don’t go to temple”.
Yes, except that visiting a temple, writing with one’s left hand, or making love to one’s adult partner do not involve rape or other violence against an unwilling human being.
But if you want to accuse me of intolerance and bigotry toward pedophiles, you may do so. Perhaps the world would be a better place if we all owned up to our various prejudices.
That’s an interesting way of putting it.
Given the choice between these two statements, which would you say is better for a community of human beings?
A.) Rational adults in the community should be able to make the cognitive choices that they deem valid.
or
B.) Other people should prevent rational adults in the community from making choices, whether the individuals involved find them valid or not.
To be rational requires action based upon reality not fantasy. IMO a “reality” that rejects the revealed truth of Holy Scripture, the Church and the consistent testimony of sanctified people for over 2000 years is not rational, but narcisistic fantasy and indeed quite insane. Your question is not founded upon any such reality but the rationalist’s delusion of dictomy where there is no dicotomy and a twisted and darkened understanding of the nature of your own being.
Human beings only become fully human and truly rational when in communion with the living God. Rational choices are made based upon loving God and through God, loving others. An important component of that love is the willingness and ability to call others to a standard of behavior that is in concert with the true nature of our being and the individual’s willing obedience. Another is the willingness to sacrifice oneself for the good of others. There must always be a synergy between the indiviudal’s understanding of one’s own life and the standards of the community. The indiviudal’s choices must always be tested against the understanding and wisdom of the community. Certainly there are times when the individual has the greater wisdom, when the community as a whole is not acting in accord with her own standards.
From a Chrisitian understanding sexual sins and perversions are a violation of our very nature as loving beings created in the image and likeness of God. Homosexuality is worse in one sense because it is a form of idolatry, worshiping our own form and extracting sensual pleasure with out the possibility of any fruit to give back to God in thanksgiving.
In any case for a community to exisit even in the most materialistic sense requires enforceable standards. There is no possibility for even a limited political community without said standards and the ability to enforce them by law or custom. To argue solely for the choice of the individual, rational or otherwise is to argue for anarchy and nihilism, death over life.
When the culture in which we live is doing everything in its power to become fully nihilisitc as our culture is, we Christians have a resposibility to say no. So you make your choice, Phil, the darkness of individual license or the light of life in the loving community of God.
Note 76.
No, I want to point out that your materialist notions of being and identity run into problems eventually. Somewhere a morality beyond materialism has to be referenced. BTW, there are plenty of pedophiles who argue that the child’s inability to give consent is irrelevant — the ACLU supported NAMBLA for example. NAMBLA employs the same materialist basis of self-identity that you do and argues that consent is an arbitrary social construct. (In this, they are more logically consistent than you are, BTW.)
Of course, a materialist world view usually truncates morality into a kind of primitive egalitarianism. So let’s define it in more detail.
Some people have a desire for sex with animals. Is bestiality morally acceptable? Should society sanction it (assuming of course no animal is hurt in the act)?
“And you, clearly, do not. So why not compromise, and we can settle on moral parity between homosexuality and heterosexuality in the laws?”
Well,
At least the materialists/pagans have admitted what they denied in the beginning – “hate” crime (and other thought crime laws) are designed to enforce their view of morality (which is of course derived from their religion) into a culture that has yet to accept it. Notice how easily they move away from the already agreed upon ground of the law into weighing it (i.e. the scales of justice become unbalanced) to their benefit…
That statement is disingenuous, as the ACLU supported the free-speech rights of NAMBLA. In doing so, they stuck by their principles even when they risked scorn. The organization never maintained that the rhetoric of NAMBLA was correct, nor did it fight for the rights of adults to molest children.
It depends what you mean by sanction. I don’t feel a need to approve of every behavior that my neighbors engage in. I would ask you for specifics, but then the thread would get pretty lurid. Since you’re assuming that no animal is hurt, let’s take, as an example, a man who manually stimulates his dog. Are you asking if I approve of it? No. Are you asking if I think he should go to prison? No–why should he?
This thread has veered a bit off-track from the original posting. I find the discussion to be enlightening, but since I’m merely a visitor to this site, I’ll ask you, Jacobse, if you think this discussion should continue in this thread.
Note 79: “I want to point out that your materialist notions of being and identity run into problems eventually. Somewhere a morality beyond materialism has to be referenced. ”
I’m not sure that these problems go away should one decide to embrace a Judeo-Christian world view. Scripture has been used to both support and denounce polygamy, slavery and warfare. Whether this is the fault of the writers or the readers, I cannot say. However, it seems clear that there is more at play in terms of the general ethical outlook of society than what their core religious faith (or lack thereof) happens to be. There are some societies that many would consider “pagan” (such as Hindu or Buddhist societies) that nevertheless maintain a high regard for tradition and for the family unit. Buddhist monks take vows of celibacy and poverty. Meanwhile, there are many professed believers in Christ who have no qualms about parlaying Christ’s teachings into enormous real estate holdings, taking many wives (as some Mormons still do) or using military force to spread one’s beliefs. In fact, some of these instances are not rejected as mere human failings or hypocrisy but as signifying a deep and sincere faith!
I recently was taken aback to read of National Review writer John Derbyshire’s confession of his rejection of Christianity (he claims a borderline deism).
Here’s Derbyshire on the question of whether religion is good for people, and why some religious people are so bad:
“The usual response to all that is the one Evelyn Waugh gave. He was religious, but he was also a nasty person, and knew it. But: ‘If not for my faith,’ he explained, ‘I would be barely human.’ In other words, even a nasty religious person would be even worse without faith.
I have now come to think that it really makes no difference, net-net. You can point to people who were improved by faith, but you can also see people made worse by it. Anyone want to argue that, say, Mohammed Atta was made a better person by his faith? All right, when Americans say ‘religion’ they mean Christianity 99 percent of the time. So: Can Christianity make you a worse person? I’m sure it can. If you’re a person with, for example, a self-righteous conviction of your own moral superiority, well, getting religion is just going to inflame that conviction. Again, I know cases, and I’m sure you do too. The exhortations to humility that you find in all religions seem to be the most difficult teaching for people to take on board. Mostly, I think it makes no difference. Evelyn Waugh would have been no more obnoxious as an atheist.
And then there are some of those discomfiting facts about human groups. Taking the population of these United States, for example, the least religious major group, by ancestry, is Americans of East Asian stock. The most religious is African Americans. All the indices of dysfunction and misbehavior, however, go the other way, with Asian Americans getting into least trouble and African Americans most. What’s that all about?
In the end, I think I’ve now arrived at this position: An individual might be made better by faith, or worse. Overall, taking society at large, I think it averages out to zero.” – NRO
What I’m saying is that it does not appear that merely holding a belief in a divine reality implies that any particular society will also by corollary adhere (or least even attempt to adhere to) a specific set of ethical values. It’s something else (although I’d be hard pressed to say what it is).
Note 80.
“Parity” actually means equality; that would not be an example of “unbalance.”
Note 82. James writes:
Yes, that’s a different question entirely. The broader question which is implicitly affirmed in your response is that morality requires a religious referent. Put another way, materialism is insufficient moral or philosophical ground for answers to complex cultural questions. (Marx tried it and look what happened.)
Note 81. Phil writes:
Ah, yes, the highly principled ACLU. It supports the free speech rights of child molesters, but works to remove all memory of the Christian heritage of Western culture from public spaces. Sorry Phil, but ideas have consequences and if you defend the ideas defending child molestation, you implicitly endorse those ideas whether you like it or not. Free speech, in other words, has a moral as well as egalitarian component especially with repugnant behaviors like the sexual violation of children.
And then there is this contradiction: While I would never foster laws on the ACLU to silence their voice, you actively foster laws against persons who hold ideas you don’t approve of — hate crime laws in particular.
No, I am asking you if it is wrong. Morals seldom rise above the level of individual preference in your view. Moral relativism is the creed.
Note 84.
Would you agree with the statement, then, that “Complex cultural questions require a religious referent, even if there is no God?”
Note 85.
It’s intriguing, your interpretation of my views. I would have said that you’re the one who more frequently supports fostering laws to prevent others from acting freely according to their beliefs, and you seem to hold the same view of me. I can’t think of an action that is currently legal for you to do that I would like to use the force of law to take away from you or prevent you from doing. Do you think you can make the same statement? (My scope in making that statement extends far beyond hate crime laws.)
Note 86.
I made the original statement in reference to morality and culture. Culture, if it is to have any moral cohesiveness, needs a transcendent/religious referent to posit some (moral) laws as universal. So, no I would not agree with the statement because all people (if they think at all, and, if they do and have not chosen nihilism) have some kind of G/god.
Are all atheists, by your definition, nihilists, or are you allowing here for a very-broad definition of “G/god?”
Note 78.
Michael,
If I’m understanding this statement correctly, what you are saying is that all Muslims, all atheists, all agnostics, all Buddhists, and all Hindus are not rational, but are indeed quite insane?
Fr. Hans writes: “The broader question which is implicitly affirmed in your response is that morality requires a religious referent. Put another way, materialism is insufficient moral or philosophical ground for answers to complex cultural questions. (Marx tried it and look what happened.)”
Well, which religion is the referent? If Christianity, then which version of Christianity? Christians can’t agree on even the most basic issues. Should the government help poor people? Can a Christian serve in the military? Is divorce permitted? How about birth control? Should slavery be permitted? (Ask the hard-line reconstructionists about that one.)
I have a good friend who has thought about and taught philosophical ethics for years. He says that in his experience religious statements about ethics rarely make anything clearer; in fact, they often make the situation more complex and confusing. This is because religious statements often push the issue back to a level in which further discussion is difficult. When someone says that ‘X is wrong’ because “God says so,” well, the question is how do you know that? If you know that because you believe the Bible says so, then we get into all sorts of historical and hermeneutical questions about what the Bible says. And so on.
That said, religion can provide an extremely powerful ethical vision that operates more on a spiritual and aesthetic level than a rational level. In that sense, religious reasoning can function in the way that good literature functions (and I don’t mean that in a trivial way.) For example, can anyone read Les Miserables and emerge unchanged?
But philosphical reasoning can also lead to profound moral views. In his Philosophy of Civilization, Albert Schweitzer said (in the interesting German way of expressing things) that rational thought that thinks itself to an end ends up in mysticism. This is how Schweitzer developed his ethic of “reverence for life.” He said, for example, that the trutly moral person would rather work in a hot and stuffy room than open his window and have insects fly in and burn their wings in the flame of his lamp. This does not speak to me of a person who was in any sense a “materialist.”
Phil, Let’s see, a principal belief of Hindu’s is the transmigration of souls even through animals; a principal belief of Buddists is that all material substance is an illusion, and a principal belief of Muslims is that they can get into heaven by killing the infidel. To the extent that people attempt to reason from these beliefs and structure their lives on them, they are insane.
Michael writes: ” . . . a principal belief of Buddists is that all material substance is an illusion . . .”
Well, sure, you can pick out some piece of any religion and make it look silly and irrational. People do that with Christianity all the time, but so what?
There are many versions of Buddhism, and many different teachings on the nature of reality and illusion. I think it is fair to say that many of the teachings of Buddhism on the nature of reality are not “doctrines” in the Christian sense, but rather are descriptions of what the Buddhist experiences during meditation.
Likewise, I think many Christian doctrines function the same way. For example, I would think that certain aspects of the doctrine of the Trinity were developed not as abstract metaphysical ideas, but rather were descriptions of Christian experience. In other words, it wasn’t that the early Christians stipulated that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but rather that Christians experienced God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Note 89.
Depends how you use the term “atheist”. Atheism can only arise in a theistic culture and as a structured, philosophical position, does not really exist. Atheism has to posit the existence of God in order to deny God, an internal contradiction. The term does not really mean much.
That’s semantics. What is the term you prefer to use for people who, for whatever reason, do not believe in a G/god? A term that encompasses not just those who reject a God that they’ve heard of but also those who never learned of a god? I use “atheist” because it’s convenient, but if you want to call them “hyraxes,” that’s fine too.
Note 92–
Can you prove that souls don’t tranmigrate through animals, or that Muslims cannot get into heaven by killing the infidel?
It sounds like you’re saying that people who believe in unprovable supernatural things are irrational. But of course, the vast majority of people on the planet believe in unprovable supernatural things.
If you’re going to pick apart someone’s religion because they believe in things that are far-fetched, more power to ya. But Christianity doesn’t hold up so well under than kind of analysis, either.
Note 95. The meaning of words matter. Atheism (a-theos in Greek) means “against God”. The phrase “does not believe in God” works as a kind of short hand but people don’t believe in God for a variety of reasons, and those reasons need a bit of definitional rigor if you want to talk about disbelief as phonomena, ie: nihilism, narcissicism, ignorance, etc.
Again, atheism, properly defined and thus properly understood, can only arise in a theistic culture. I’d go even farther and say that radical atheism can only arise in a mono-theistic culture.
So going back to your question, “Are all atheists, by your definition, nihilists…?” the only answer I can offer given the way the question is framed is the one I gave, “Depends how you use the term ‘atheist’.”
Nihilism would of course reject God because it rejects order and authority. Nihilists are atheists, but not all atheists are nihilists.
It’s true that atheism (in the “active” sense) requires a certain degree of dedication, as it takes some amount of effort to resist the same intellectual doubts that also afflict believers. I’m thinking that these types are not as numerous as those for whom the question of whether God exists is irrelevant to their lives. It’s as important as whether aliens exist or not. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t, who knows? Hard as it is to believe for some, such people can still lives that are decent and even altruistic. They go to work, raise their families and even contibute in positive ways to society for whatever reasons they have. I don’t think one needs to have any specific ideas about the existence of God to live such a life, as we all are generally driven by the simple desire to be happy, and the fulfillment of these desires generally requires that we get along with others to a certain extent. We are, after all, social creatures.
However … this is probably relatively easy to do in Western society where we are lucky to live comfortable existences filled with abundance and leisure. Our lives are not threatened on a daily basis, and we are not confronted with grave matters every day as are many throughout the world. Perhaps this is where faith can assist (as I’m sure it has in many instances of Christians who have risked all), although I’m sure that there are agnostics and even atheists who are willing to put their lives on the line. In a sense, the latter might even be considered more “pure of heart” in the sense that they aren’t expecting a pie-in-the-sky reward for the good they do. Probably a rare thing, though.
Those are loaded terms, all of which presupposes that a god exists. A dictionary definition of “atheism” encompasses “disbelief in the existence of God or gods.” I suppose it’s possible to argue that “disbelief” requires the notion to exist in the first place, so that one can actively reject it. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that such disbelief can only arise in a theistic culture. I reject the existence of Zeus, Ra, Thor, and Quetzalcoatl, and yet these gods are accepted by almost no one in my culture. I’ve even argue that it’s not nihilism, narcissicism, or ignorance that leads to my disbelief in those gods.
Phil writes: “Those are loaded terms, all of which presupposes that a god exists. A dictionary definition of ‘atheism’ encompasses ‘disbelief in the existence of God or gods.'”
Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith, rejects the label of “atheist.” He notes that, for example, there is no term for someone who is not an alchemist. We probably would not say that someone who did not believe in alchemy was morally defective or a “materialist.”
Phil: “I reject the existence of Zeus, Ra, Thor, and Quetzalcoatl, and yet these gods are accepted by almost no one in my culture.”
The atheist would say that if there are 10,000 possible gods to believe in, most theists disbelieve in 9,999 of them — and that the atheist simply does not believe in the other one either.
Phil: “I’ve even argue that it’s not nihilism, narcissicism, or ignorance that leads to my disbelief in those gods.”
I think most modern non-theists are such because people today have different standards of belief. For example, I think it was the early church father Clement who claimed that the existence of the phoenix bird was a symbol of the resurrection. Clement’s claim would not have been thought odd back then, because even ancient historians including Tacitus and Herodotus talked about the phoenix.
I would ask: are people today somehow intellectually or spiritual defective because they don’t believe in the phoenix? As Phil says with respect to other gods, are today’s disbelievers in the phoenix nihilists, narcissists, or ignorant?