Orrin:

Why only statism? What about atomistic, hedonistic libertarianism?

Who's gonna die to preserve that? And sooner or later somebody will have to.

The main reason that Republicans get such a small percent of the non-religious vote is because Republicans have been hostile to the non-religious. You tell people that they are the cause of all that is bad with society, and they will vote against you. You may think that Republicans can afford this, but check the results of the last two census (censii?). The non-religious posted the largest gains of all the religious categories. At some point in the future, Republicans will need to curb their hostility if they are to be a majority party.

Robert:

You wouldn't by any chance be thinking of the hostility here to the non-religious (although otherwise similarly inclined), would you?

Robert D,

Cuts both ways. The Democrats' hostility to the "religious right" and evangelical Christianity generally is hard to miss. Eventually, the black churches will figure it out, as the Catholics are in the process of doing. Regardless of growth rates, there are still a lot more evangelicals and Catholics than non-religious folks in this country. But you sure do get funny looks at local GOP meetings nowadays if you start railing about the godless heathens that are stealing the country out from under us.

There's also a strong strain in Christian teaching that informed refusal to embrace the Gospel of Christ is sinful (as are lots of other things that the Republican party doesn't plan on banning). I have to think that some (not all) of the perceived animus is projected -- I know you think I'm a hellbound son of Satan, even if you won't say it to my face, ergo I won't vote for you.

(If I were in a snarky mood, I'd say that if I have to soil my hands by making common cause with the Southern Baptists, I might as well make common cause with similarly-inclined atheists too...)

Peter:

That leads inevitably to statism.

Robert:

There are ways of dealing with the phenomenon that make it less significant politically.

Hostile, Jeff? Us? I'm hurt.

As long as you abide by the more public of the commandments, no one here is demanding that you believe, or even suggesting that belief is the key to good citizenship. That we understand that, left to our own devices, you would, with the best will in the world, end human life as we know it is not hostility -- it merely underscores the magnamity of our tolerance.

David:

Au contraire.

There are several prominent posters here who focus on belief at the expense of conduct. Including insisting that a specific form of belief is essential to good citizenship. And that those who fail to evince that belief should be, among other things, publicly shunned, and denied the right to vote.

Kind of like felons.

Jeff:

Find me the person anywhere in America, let alone on this tiny piece of it, who says there should be a religious test for your vote.

Random Lawyer,
You are right, the Democrats are guilty of hostility to religious conservatives. I thought that the Ashcroft confirmation hearings were a low point for them.

I don't go to GOP meetings, so I'll have to take your word for it. But for those who do rail against the godless heathens, there is no political price to pay. When George Bush Sr. was on the campaign trail, he was asked by an atheist what he would do for atheists. To paraphrase his reply, he did not consider atheists either patriots or citizens, for that matter.

I think that the Republicans can gain some important swing votes if they moderate some of their anti-secular policies & views. The non-religious may not yet be as big a constituency as the evangelicals, but they are growing and too big to ignore politically. They are also diverse - don't assume that they are all socialists. There are many secular conservatives out there (like me) who would be a natural consituency as long as you are not trying to force prayer on their children.

"Find me the person anywhere in America, let alone on this tiny piece of it, who says there should be a religious test for your vote."

OJ, what about your hero, Mr Kraynak?

Random Lawyer sez:
"Robert D,

Cuts both ways. The Democrats' hostility to the "religious right" and evangelical Christianity generally is hard to miss. "

Indeed. But if we can agree that the Democrats are both malign and stupid, that's all the more reason not to copy them, isn't it? Especially if we want to see them driven out of business and replaced by a *loyal* opposition party.

Robert:

I'm unaware of him saying there should be religious tests for voting.

OJ:

Uhhh, you.

About six months ago you ran an article on multiverse theory. In it, you asserted materialists have imaginations inadequate to the task of conceiving such a thing (an ironic assertion, since it was materialists who conceived the notion in the first place).

As part of the follow-on, you also asserted that since materialists have such limited imaginations, they are also incapable of properly conceiving the underpinnings of our Republic. And, therefore, consideration should be given to removing materialists right to vote.

And just two weeks ago you labeled materialists as parasites whose complete removal--a pair of words with a Final Solution tingle to them--might at some point have to be considered.

Jeff:

How?

We should work to make this a society in which the amoral feel uncomfortable enough to want to leave, but if you gave them a religious oath they'd just lie. They want the benefits of a religious society after all.

There may not be a religious test to vote, but there does seem to be one for a certain party to allow judicial nominees to pass without filibuster (hint: it's not the GOP).

Never mind the "How," here is a classic example of the sort of gratuitous, offensive, and pointless insults Robert is talking about.

First, the gross generalization that secularists are amoral, followed directly by the equally baseless, and insulting, assertion that secularists are cowards incapable of declining some religious oath.

The first is bad enough, but self-defeating, since, on the face of it, it is impossible to tell religionist from areligionist on the basis of publicly displayed morality. After all, there aren't nearly enough secularists to put a even dent in the divorce, abortion, and pornography statistics so often quoted here.

The second, if uttered too loudly in any squadron wardroom I've been in, would earn you a frog-march from the building by men who were easily brave enough to be atheists in foxholes, never mind some piffling thing like a religious oath.

And to what end? Alienating people who agree with you on most issues, just because they have a different starting point?

Jeff:

Hardly gratuitous, there are dozens of posts here explaining the point, which you've been singularly unsuccesful at refuting, that in the absence of God no morality is possible. Hardly surprising, since the great philosophical project of the past couple centuries has been to find a way of grounding morality that does not require God and it too has failed.

No one here much cares what y'all believe in, but even fewer are willing to have you destroy the culture you freeload off of.

One could scarcely imagine a statement more clearly illustrating the saying "the pot calling the kettle black."

And I can think of no better example of freeloading than all the religionists that have died of old age rather than sectarian slaughter.

Religion doesn't require sectarian slaughter rather than old age, it just doesn't mind it much.

Well, I mind it.

I still like our mixed society. I thought the Framers had a good idea with Article VI.

Your hero Reagan read me out of the Big Tent when he said people like me were incapable of being moral. I haven't forgotten.

If morality requires a deity, then there can be no morality. You disparage a project of two centuries. I disparage a failure of six millenia. At worst, evens.

Harry:

Not incapable of being moral, but incapable of deriving morality. Luckily for all, you're in a society that derives it for you.

"Hardly gratuitous, there are dozens of posts here explaining the point, which you've been singularly unsuccesful at refuting, that in the absence of God no morality is possible." -oj

It is easily refuted. All one has to do is to live morally without God. I do it every day. Not that I, or Jeff or Harry can prove it to you on this blog. But why don't we take a different tack, and ask you to prove your point? You have been singularly unsuccessful at doing that!

"Hardly surprising, since the great philosophical project of the past couple centuries has been to find a way of grounding morality that does not require God and it too has failed." -oj

How so? More to the point, how has grounding morality using God succeeded? What are the success criteria? What are the accomplishments?

Robert:

You all conform to Judeo-Christian morality--to your credit.

Jeff says "The first is bad enough, but self-defeating, since, on the face of it, it is impossible to tell religionist from areligionist on the basis of publicly displayed morality. After all, there aren't nearly enough secularists to put a even dent in the divorce, abortion, and pornography statistics so often quoted here."

Just to share an anecdote that speaks to Jeff's point. Several months ago I was listening to a report on pornography in America done by a BBC radio journalist. He went to the pornography industry trade show in Las Vegas, and spoke to a Christian minister who had set up a booth in the show to minister to the participants. The minister was bemoaning the fact that pornography was becoming mainstream and respectable, even among Christians. For hotel chains, porn movie rentals are one of the biggest profit centers. They especially love to cater to Christian groups who hold meetings and conventions at their hotels, because the porn movie rentals spike upward dramatically during their stay.

The decline in traditional sexual morality is not being stopped by America's overwhelming religiosity. Like the proverbial frog that passively boils to death slowly in a pot, Christian morality is slowly succumbing to the "acids" of modernity. This just shows the weaknesses of shame-based public morality. With modern technologies like cable TV and the Internet, vice has gone "stealth", and people conditioned to respond to peer and group pressure aren't prepared to be their own cop when faced with the temptations of vice in the privacy of their own bedrooms or computers.