Religion
Related: About this forumThe religious right is finished. So what's next for social conservatives?
As its political influence wanes, a once-powerful movement finds itself at a crossroads
By Damon Linker | 6:04am ET
Remember the religious right?
No, I'm not talking about patently ridiculous efforts to mobilize the Republican base for the upcoming midterm elections by reframing abortion as a tax-and-spend issue.
I mean, rather, the political movement that united conservative evangelical Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, Jews, and Muslims around an ideology derived from the encyclicals of Pope John Paul II. This ideology sought to institute a "culture of life" that would outlaw abortion, gay marriage, euthanasia, and maybe even contraception and all non-procreative sex acts (masturbation, oral sex, anal sex) — with all of this rooted in a distinctive interpretation of the nation's founding documents that wedded them with medieval concepts of natural law.
This religious right — which helped deliver a solid re-election to George W. Bush in 2004, and reached its peak of influence just after that election with the federal intervention in the sensational right-to-die case of Terri Schiavo — is finished.
http://theweek.com/article/index/255332/the-religious-right-is-finished-so-whats-next-for-social-conservatives
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loudsue
(14,087 posts)I live in southern baptist territory, and the religious right is more religious and further right than ever before.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)He predicts that some will change their major causes to new topics and that some will withdraw from politics all together.
Any evidence of that where you are?
loudsue
(14,087 posts)There is more religious fervor drummed up by the SBC since they have instituted (and institutionalized) their rightwing beliefs, and have made sure all young pastors coming out of seminary are all on the same right wing page. Even people who are in their 80's and have been liberal in their thinking, voting for liberal democrats in state races (liberal meaning southern liberal, not New England liberal) have started being swayed by what they hear in church all week long. They are now starting to vote republican, because they are being told in church socials how Obama is taking away their medicare and social security. The fear that is being drummed up has them mistrustful of old friends, like myself, who tell them the pastor is lying to them.
What southern baptist is going to believe their pastor is lying to them? I'm the enemy because of it. Not the lying pastor.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)I'm not sur whether the Democratic party should focus on marginalizing them or try to woo them in some way. I'm leaning towards marginalization though.
Surveys show that these more traditional denominations are losing their young members, and it's in part due to the political position they take.
Maybe I'm being overly optimistic but I hope there is a trend.
loudsue
(14,087 posts)churches (rural area). But the younger kids who DON'T go to church, are 10 to 1 believing the fox news line on most everything. I don't get it.
I do have to say, however, that the younger kids are more tolerant of homosexuality and race than their older relatives...who are totally INtolerant. But still...a couple of years ago, all of them in the family went out and voted for the N.C. law that said marriage was between a man & a woman...just like the church told them to do.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)I think FOX is really good at playing to the fears of the poor whites in this country.
Glad to hear about the improvement in attitude towards GLBT equality. I think that's going to get better and better as it become more acceptable for younger kids to come out and families to be openly supportive. It's harder to hate people that you actually know.
Sorry that you have to be there. It's got to be hard.
loudsue
(14,087 posts)But my husband & family & farm....all great.
Thanks! 
MisterP
(23,730 posts)hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)cbayer
(146,218 posts)They represent too large, organized and easily outraged political group to be ignored.
I have never thought of the religious right in the way he defines it, only as christian fundamentalists spurred on by the neocons.
Anyway, I think his 4 possible predictions all have some validity and we will see significant changes.
This just didn't work out all that well for the "Christian Coalition".
longship
(40,416 posts)They are substantially all religious right. I would bet that every single one of them is a fundamentalist.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)fundamentalists and not even religious right.
But they know who their audience is.
The question is this - if the religious right is losing their foothold, and I think they are, will we see a change in the demographics of the RNC and elected republicans?
longship
(40,416 posts)I agree with the OP as far as the GOP has a real problem with far too many religious kooks -- no other description is accurate -- at all levels of their party.
In the 1990's when I was an officer in the Democratic Party in Sedgwick county Kansas, our equivalent GOP party's monthly newsletter read like a Jack Chick tract. It was Jesus this and Jesus that in every single article. The party also hosted a phone line with a daily recorded message called the Godarchy line which openly advocated for a theocracy. There was no mention of the Republican Party in the mention but the message came from Republican county headquarters. We all knew then that there was going to be real trouble.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)The are trying to recruit more blacks and latinos, who tend to be mainline protestant and catholic. That doesn't mean they don't hold similar views as the fundamentalists, but they might.
I can't find any actual demographics on religion, though.
Godarchy? Wow, that's some scary stuff.
longship
(40,416 posts)Google "Godarchy line" and you'll see.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)longship
(40,416 posts)
thelordofhell
(4,569 posts)Then the Tea Party came
This shit doesn't go away........it just festers until somebody picks off the scab again
CanonRay
(14,101 posts)The Christian Dominion movement is alive and well. See Cruz, Ted
Leontius
(2,270 posts)
muriel_volestrangler
(101,316 posts)...
But there’s a coda to the Vision Forum story — an upbeat epilogue following its ignominious end. It turns out that Vision Forum is also part of “the quiverfull, dominion-mandate Christian movie scene.” That’s a thing — it even sponsors an annual right-wing Independent Christian Film Festival. And the Vision Forum folks went and made themselves a movie, called Alone Yet Not Alone, which is all about how women are called to serve as “wife, mother or daughter.”
...
The movie Alone Yet Not Alone has been called racist because of its portrayal of Native Americans, but that’s not really accurate. It’s actually reflecting the idea that Christian culture is superior to Native American culture; that other types of culture are hostile to real Christianity, and that real Christianity can and must eventually take over these other cultures.
...
The list of those involved also reads like a who’s who of Patrick Henry College graduates. (Patrick Henry College was founded by Home School Legal Defense Association founder Michael Farris in an effort to train up a new generation of Christian leaders to “retake America for Christ”). Alone Yet Not Alone was written by Tracy Leininger, a graduate of Patrick Henry College. Patrick Henry College alum and The Rebelution founder Brett Harris (brother of I Kissed Dating Goodbye author Joshua Harris and son of prominent Christian homeschool leader Gregg Harris) plays a leading role in the film. Several other Patrick Henry College graduates—including Ben Adams and Peter Forbes—were also involved. Not surprisingly, Michael Farris and HSLDA promoted the film heavily.
All that promotion paid off in the form of a bona fide Academy Award nomination. The title song, “Alone Yet Not Alone,” has been nominated for the Oscar for best original song. (Maybe due to the fact that it was co-written by “Bruce Broughton, who served on the Academy’s board of governors as a representative of the music branch from 2003 through 2012, when he was termed out.”
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2014/01/20/how-the-most-famous-white-evangelical-with-a-disability-became-the-public-face-of-the-white-evangelical-campaign-against-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities/
muriel_volestrangler
(101,316 posts)Musician Bruce Broughton, a former Academy governor and current executive committee member in its music branch, composed the title song from the independent Christian faith movie Alone Yet Not Alone.
The Academy said on Wednesday that Broughton had used his position within the organisation to contact voters about his own submission of the song, which was "inconsistent" with the Academy's rules on Oscar nominations campaigning.
...
Broughton said in a statement he was "devastated" at the Academy's decision. "I indulged in the simplest grassroots campaign and it went against me when the song started getting attention. I got taken down by competition that had months of promotion and advertising behind them. I simply asked people to find the song and consider it."
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jan/30/alone-yet-not-alone-oscars-disqualified
Dominionist movie ethics fail. I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you.
MellowDem
(5,018 posts)Their reasoning is emulated and supported by many moderates and progressive-minded people. Until faith is seen as a bad thing expect large religious groups with bad ideas based on faith.
rug
(82,333 posts)Stupid things happen all around when one is treated like the other.
MellowDem
(5,018 posts)And when people believe terrible ideas based on faith, if enough people believe it you'll see it in politics
rug
(82,333 posts)The arena is political acts unless you want to outlaw opinion.
The line is pretty clear.
MellowDem
(5,018 posts)I just want to change the perception as faith as a virtue to faith as a terrible reason to believe anything.
rug
(82,333 posts)MellowDem
(5,018 posts)If you want to tell me if you disagree with me and why, then we can have a discussion.
rug
(82,333 posts)But that's my opinion.
The basic criticism I have is that sweeping generalizations are for the most part unsupportable.
We can discuss it if you like but we both know where it'll end up.
MellowDem
(5,018 posts)You say it's a sweeping generalization, but where is it generalizing? There was no sweeping generalization that I saw.
rug
(82,333 posts)Can't get much more categorical than that.
MellowDem
(5,018 posts)Look up the definition if you'd like. I make no assumptions, it is an opinion. If I said "everyone thinks faith is great!", that would be a sweeping generalization.
If I say that rape, without qualification, is bad, is that a sweeping generalization, or a logical fallacy? No, it's an opinion. And one which many faith-based opinions disagree.
And what does it being categorical have to do with it being considered wrong by you? My opinion on rape is categorical as well. Is it wrong because of that?
Any other reason you disagree?
rug
(82,333 posts)Since you state it's your opinion, that's fine.
Regarding categorization, I don't think you'll find many takers for the proposition that faith per se is equivalent to rape per se.
As to your opinion that faith per se is "a bad thing", of course I disagree. Faith can bring comfort, distress, harm and liberation and everything in between.
MellowDem
(5,018 posts)Merely pointing out categorical opinions are not logical fallacies.
Faith can bring comfort, but it's false comfort. It can bring hope, but it's false hope. People find comfort in thinking the world is ending soon. They also make bad choices based on it. People find comfort in thinking there is a perfect afterlife. It can also make them not work to make this one better.
Anything based only on faith is not based on reality, and believing false things is always a bad thing.
The point is that, the foundation of faith is always a bad way to make decisions. Believing something without any evidence is a terrible way to understand reality or make it better. No doubt that faith can incidentally make people feel good sometimes, but feeling good has nothing to do with whether faith is good.
A way of thinking that promotes believing false things, even promotes gullibility, will always be bad for people and society, no matter how good it makes people feel.
I believe the truth is always preferable to falseness, that's why I think faith is categorically bad.
rug
(82,333 posts)What you have is an intellectual submission to an opinion that what exists is only that which can be detected, potentially, by human senses and instruments.
MellowDem
(5,018 posts)whatever you may mean by that. However, many religions, the major ones included, claim just that. They are not only that arrogant, but they do it based on no evidence. Don't project that on me. I only claim to think that truth is better than falseness.
There are atheists who think faith is no big deal. Let people believe false things if it makes them feel better they say. Honestly, I think that's a very condescending and apathetic position to take, to let people stew in delusion and superstition because of... what? Tradition? Not to hurt their feelings? Privilege? (probably this one, only certain supernatural claims get special protection). It seems to imply the idea that religious people can't deal with the real world without false beliefs.
I claim to follow the best method that we know of for discovering various facts and truths in the world around us, indeed, constantly questioning those truths and facts and refining them as more information is discovered. If a better method is discovered, I'll gladly follow it.
It's not an intellectual "submission", it's a preference to follow a tried and true practice compared to one that has never shown to be good at discovering anything.
I'm not claiming that nothing else can exist beyond human senses and instruments etc., just that there's no good reason for believing so.
What is an intellectual submission is engaging in rampant cognitive dissonance and intellectual dishonesty to try and reconcile faith-based beliefs with the real world, which most every religious person must engage in by definition. In fact, most of the major religions call for total submission to a tyrannical, murderous, morally bankrupt god. So I guess this is another case of projection by you.
You have been setting up a lot of strawmen, pretending I hold dogmatic positions (like the faithful do) that I don't. I understand that faith is very hard to defend, so projecting its failures on everyone may seem like a good strategy, but it's dishonest.
Htom Sirveaux
(1,242 posts)Also, do you believe that conservative religious people see progressive/moderate religious people as their allies?
MellowDem
(5,018 posts)His reasoning for helping the poor is the same as his reasoning for believing the devil is behind marriage equality.
I don't think they see progressive religious people as their allies, but they find them to be much less of a threat than atheists. It's easy to write progressive religious people off as simply following the wrong type of faith, and there's no way to argue about something that can't be proven. But criticism against the foundation of their belief system, grounded in reality, is a lot harder for them to deal with.
Htom Sirveaux
(1,242 posts)It can be used to build housing for the poor, or to crack skulls. By your logic, the risk of misuse means that using a hammer for housing is enabling hammer-based assault. Thus, all hammer use should be viewed as bad.
Meanwhile, you note that fundies would view progressive faith as "the wrong type" and you further acknowledge that even in situations where liberals and conservatives share a creed, interpretation separates them. Both recognitions undermine the position that all faith deserves to be treated the same because it is supposedly the same reasoning.
Finally, can you explain further why fundies find it harder to write off atheist attacks? What gives atheists more credibilty in fundie eyes?
MellowDem
(5,018 posts)Faith is not the only way to help poor people, for example, there are other reasons for doing so based on logic and empathy that come without all the baggage of faith.
Faith is not a good system of thinking. Even if a person wants to do good things based on faith, if someone criticizes their reasoning, they won't have a good defense. Their defense will be just as valid or credible as bad ideas based on faith.
We don't need faith to do good things, and faith justifies bad things. So, faith is not needed in society, and overall adds nothing but subtracts substantially from society.
I don't think that fundamentalists find it harder to write off atheist attacks, or view them as more credible, they just view it as more of a threat. Fundamentalists have been trained, oftentimes indoctrinated from birth, to engage in cognitive dissonance and intellectual dishonesty on this subject. What is threatening is that atheists engage them from an entirely different perspective that can't be as easily dismissed from a position of logic as progressive religions can. And many fundamentalists do try to reconcile their faith with logic. It can't be done, but they try. And that is where the threat comes from, when they see that an argument based not on faith is beating their argument every time. It can take a while for it to sink in.
It's not like the fastest growing religion is progressive religions in the USA. It's non-belief, and for good reason.
Htom Sirveaux
(1,242 posts)So atheists are given equal credit for all the good religious people have done, because in a hypothetical world, all those things would have been done by atheists too. But, in this hypothetical world, atheists would not have done as many bad things as religious people, because some atrocities have only one cause and that is religion, so they would not have happened otherwise. Is that a fair summary of your reasoning? If so, how does this comport with the idea that we shouldn't believe what cannot be empirically tested (as a hypothetical world such as this cannot. We cannot rerun history that way)?
If atheists are the most effective at attacking fundamentalists logically, is it also the case that accepting at least one contention of the fundamentalists, such as "one deity exists", renders the fundamentalist position logically unassailable? Moreover, in your description, fundies desire logic, atheists are logic personified, but the liberal response to logic appears to be "derp!" Do you see liberals as valuing logic less than atheists or fundies?
cbayer
(146,218 posts)I hope you will stick around. This can be a rough room at times, which I am sure will come as no surprise to you.
Htom Sirveaux
(1,242 posts) MellowDem
(5,018 posts)I'm not attacking you personally, just ask me what I think instead of assuming and then arguing against those assumed positions.
My reasoning is that there is nothing about faith in and of itself which makes people do more good than they would without it. False beliefs and gullibility cause more harm than good in my opinion and according to my preferences. I never claimed that people can't have opinions on things that can't be empirically tested. People can still draw on evidence, experience, logic and reasoning. And their opinions will remain opinions, some with more support than others.
As for hypothetical worlds with or without faith, I believe that the world with less faith would be a relatively better place according to my preferences, but it's just my opinion, based on the reasoning above. I'm not claiming it would be utopia. But all of the ills that come from faith based beliefs, and there are many in my opinion, not just atrocities in the name of religion. Faith can hurt curiosity, which slows progress, and it can also be used to indoctrinate children, and often is, so that they grow up with ignorant beliefs, which in turn negatively impact society. Faith can have a whole slew of negative effects that ripple out and impact many things.
Accepting one faith based belief weakens a person's argument who is attacking another's faith based belief. If you are attacking a faith based belief with logic, that is, pointing out the failure of faith to support the claim, you are not being consistent when you hold to faith based beliefs yourself, especially on the same general topic. If you are, then you're engaging in cognitive dissonance and oftentimes, intellectual dishonesty.
Atheists can subscribe to other faith-based beliefs, and if they do then their position would be similarly weakened. But skeptical atheists can be consistent when using logic to undermine other faith-based beliefs. Progressive theists cannot. So progressive theists can logically assail conservative faith based beliefs, but it won't be as effective IMHO.
Everyone uses logic, most of us use skepticism all the time in our day to day lives. It's a very effective tool. But religion gets compartmentalized by religious people. It gets an exemption from reality, basically. Logical arguments based on evidence are valued in society, and even conservative religious people know this. That is why many will venture into the realm of logic and reasoning to try and reinforce their faith based beliefs. Like the Creation Museum, for example. Sure, it's terrible logic and reasoning, the evidence is terrible or non-existent, but they're trying to appear credible from a scientific standpoint. Or apologetics. There has been thousands of years of terrible, poor reasoning, for example, by the Catholic Church, that attempts to invoke logic and reasoning to support faith-based beliefs.
There are people with PHDs working at the Creation Museum. Believing supernatural things has nothing to do with intelligence or smarts. It's a matter of internal consistency and preferences for a person, not to mention, for most, childhood indoctrination.
"Liberals" are a wide array of people, and include atheists and theists alike, and even some fundamentalists.
Htom Sirveaux
(1,242 posts)My understanding of faith is more like "opinions on things that can't be empirically tested" than it is like "false beliefs and gullibility". If your definition of faith is "false beliefs and gullibilty", then of course it makes sense that you'd see it as inherently bad.
MellowDem
(5,018 posts)as I understand it. People can believe things based on evidence that can't be empirically tested.
Htom Sirveaux
(1,242 posts)in those situations?
MellowDem
(5,018 posts)For a claim that can't be tested, that's sometimes all that can be had.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)MellowDem
(5,018 posts)That's how.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)people?
Surely you have examples of this.
MellowDem
(5,018 posts)The only difference is the interpretation. Conservative religious people think gay marriage is wrong because god thinks so. Progressive religious people think gay marriage is good because god thinks so. Etc. etc.
Any position that is held because of faith is an emulation of their reasoning. It also makes it hard for progressive religious people to challenge conservative religious people with a non-argument about whose god is right.
struggle4progress
(118,282 posts)of Pope John Paul II is so laughable there's really no point in discussing it
One can often learn something from even an incorrect interpretation, if it be somehow based on actual facts -- but arguing with crazy talk hardly ever improves the mind
Auntie Bush
(17,528 posts)Romney is a good example of their failing to believe in reality. It's hard to believe he actually thought he was going to win.
Dawson Leery
(19,348 posts)Never forget what a filthy scumbag JPII was. How many millions did JPII murder when he told Africa to not use condoms (spreading HIV)?
