Isaac Asimov on "The Reagan Doctrine"- an oldie but a goodie!

[n2doc]

http://www.skeptictank.org/isaac.htm

The Reagan Doctrine by Isaac Asimov
From The Austin American-Statesman, May 10, 1981

Some time ago, Ronald Reagan pointed out that one couldn't trust the Soviet government because the Soviets didn't believe in God or in an afterlife and therefore had no reason to behave honorably, but would be willing to lie and cheat and do all sorts of wicked things to aid their cause. Naturally, I firmly believe that the president of the United States knows what he is talking about, so I've done my very best to puzzle out the meaning of that statement.

Let me begin by presenting this "Reagan Doctrine" (using the term with all possible respect): "No one who disbelieves in God and in an afterlife can possibly be trusted." If this is true (and it must be if the president says so), then people are just naturally dishonest and crooked and downright rotten. In order to keep them from lying and cheating every time they open their mouths, they must be bribed or scared out of doing so. They have to be told and made to believe that if they tell the truth and do the right thing and behave themselves, they will go to heaven and get to plunk a harp and wear the latest design in halos. They must also be told and made to believe that if they lie and steal and run around with the opposite sex, they are going to hell and will roast over a brimstone fire forever.

It's a little depressing, if you come to think of it. By the Reagan Doctrine, there is no such thing as a person who keeps his word just because he has a sense of honor. No one tells the truth just because he thinks that it is the decent thing to do. No one is kind because he feels sympathy for others, or treats others decently because he likes the kind of world in which decency exists.

Instead, according to the Reagan Doctrine, anytime we meet someone who pays his debts, or hands in a wallet he found in the street, or stops to help a blind man cross the road, or tells a casual truth -- he's just buying himself a ticket to heaven, or else canceling out a demerit that might send him to hell. It's all a matter of good, solid business practice; a matter of turning a spiritual profit and of responding prudently to spiritual blackmail.

Personally, I don't think that I -- or you -- or even president Reagan -- would knock down an old lady and snatch her purse the next time we're short a few bucks. If only we were sure of that heavenly choir, or if only we were certain we wouldn't get into that people-fry down in hell. But by the Reagan Doctrine, if we didn't believe in God and in an afterlife, there would be nothing to stop us, so l guess we all would.

But let's take the reverse of the Reagan Doctrine. If no one who disbelieves in God and in an afterlife can possibly be trusted, it seems to follow that those who do believe in God and in an afterlife can be trusted. Since the American government consists of god-fearing people who believe in an afterlife, it seems pretty significant that the Soviet Union nevertheless would not trust us any farther than they can throw an ICBM. Since the Soviets are slaves to godless communism, they would naturally think everyone else is as evil as they are. Consequently, the Soviet Union's distrust of us is in accordance with the Reagan Doctrine.

Yet there are puzzles. Consider Iran. The Iranians are a god-fearing people and believe in an afterlife, and this is certainly true of the mullahs and ayatollahs who comprise their government. And yet we are reluctant to trust them for some reason. President Reagan himself has referred to the Iranian leaders as "barbarians."

Oddly enough, the Iranians are reluctant to trust us, either. They referred to the ex-president (I forget his name for he is never mentioned in the media anymore) as the "Great Satan" and yet we all know that the ex- president was a born-again Christian.

There's something wrong here. god-fearing Americans and god-fearing Iranians don't trust each other and call each other terrible names. How does that square with the Reagan Doctrine?

To be sure, the God in whom the Iranians believe is not quite the God in whom we believe, and the afterlife they believe in is a little different from ours. There are no houris, alas, in our heaven. We call our system of belief Christianity and they call theirs Islam, and come to think of it, for something like twelve centuries, good Christians believed Islam was an invention of the devil and believers in Islam ("Moslems") courteously returned the compliment so that there was almost continuous war between them. Both sides considered it a holy war and felt that the surest way of going to heaven was to clobber an infidel. What's more, you didn't have to do it in a fair and honorable way, either. Tickets of admission just said, "Clobber!"

This bothers me a little. The Reagan Doctrine doesn't mention the variety of god or afterlife that is concerned. It doesn't indicate that it matters what you call God -- Allah, Vishnu, Buddha, Zeus, Ishtar. I don't think that president Reagan meant to imply a Moslem couldn't trust a Shintoist or that a Buddhist couldn't trust a Parsee. I think it was just the godless Soviets he was after.

Yet perhaps he was just being cautious in not mentioning the fact that the variety of deity counted. But even if that were so there are problems.

For instance, the Iranians are Moslems and the Iraqi are Moslems. Both are certain that there is no god but Allah and that Mohammed is his prophet and believe it with all their hearts. And yet, at the moment, Iraq doesn't trust Iran worth a damn, and Iran trusts Iraq even less than that. If fact, Iran is convinced that Iraq is in the pay of the Great Satan (that's god-fearing America, in case you've forgotten) and Iraq counters with the accusation that it is Iran who is in the pay of the great Satan. Neither side is accusing the godless Soviets of anything, which is a puzzle.

But then, you know, they are Moslems and perhaps we can't just go along with any old god. I can see why Reagan might not like to specify, since it might not be good presidential business to offend the billions of people who are sincerely religious but lack the good taste to be Christians. Still, just among ourselves, and in a whisper, perhaps the only people you can really trust are good Christians.

Yet even that raises difficulties. For instance, I doubt that anyone can seriously maintain that the Irish people are anything but god-fearing, and certainly they don't have the slightest doubts concerning the existence of an afterlife. Some are Catholics and some are Protestants, but both of these Christian varieties believe in the Bible and in God and in Jesus and in heaven and in hell. Therefore, by the Reagan Doctrine, the people of Ireland should trust each other.

Oddly enough, they don't. In Northern Ireland there has been a two-sided terrorism that has existed for years and shows no sign of ever abating. Catholics and Protestants blow each other up every chance they get and there seems to be no indication of either side trusting the other even a little bit.

But then, come to think of it, Catholics and Protestants have had a thing about each other for centuries. They have fought each other, massacred each other, and burned each other at the stake. And at no time was this conflict fought in a gentlemanly, let's-fight-fair manner. Any time you caught a heretic or an idolater (or whatever nasty name you wanted to use) looking the other way, you sneaked up behind him and bopped him and collected your ticket to heaven.

We can't even make the Reagan Doctrine show complete sense here in the United States. Consider the Ku Klux Klan. They don't like the Jews or the Catholics, but then, the Jews don't accept Jesus and the Catholics do accept the Pope, and these fine religious distinctions undoubtedly justify distrust by a narrow interpretation of the Reagan Doctrine. The protestant Ku Klux Klan can only cotton to Protestants.

Blacks, however, are predominantly protestant, and of southern varieties, too, for that is where their immediate ancestors learned their religion. Ku Kluxers and Blacks have very similar religions and therefore even by a narrow interpretation of the Reagan Doctrine should trust each other. It is difficult to see why they don't.

What about the Moral Majority? They're absolute professionals when it comes to putting a lot of stock in God and in an afterlife. They practice it all day, apparently. Naturally, they're a little picky. One of them said that God didn't listen to the prayers of a Jew. Another refused to share a platform with Phyllis Schlafly, the moral majority's very own sweetheart, because she was a Catholic. Some of them don't even require religious disagreements, just political ones. They have said that one can't be a liberal and a good Christian at one and the same time so that if you don't vote right, you are going straight to hell whatever your religious beliefs are. Fortunately, at every election they will tell you what the right vote is so that you don't go to hell by accident.

Perhaps we shouldn't get into the small details, though. The main thing is that the Soviet Union is Godless and, therefore, sneaky, tricky, crooked, untrustworthy, and willing to stop at nothing to advance their cause. The United States is god-fearing and therefore forthright, candid, honest, trustworthy, and willing to let their cause lose sooner than behave in anything but the most decent possible way.

It bothers the heck out of me therefore that there's probably not a country in the world that doesn't think the United States, through the agency of the CIA and its supposedly underhanded methods, has upset governments in Guatemala, Chile, and Iran (among others), has tried to overthrow the Cuban government by a variety of economic, political, and even military methods, and so on. In every country, you'll find large numbers who claim that the United States fought a cruel and unjust war in Vietnam and that it is the most violent and crime-ridden nation in the world.

They don't seem to be impressed by the fact that we're god-fearing.

Next they'll be saying that Ronald Reagan (our very own president) doesn't know what he's talking about.

[bryant69]

1. That is an interesting article

Reagan was a shallow man who was reasonably good at looking deep. It's called acting, I suppose.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. What a great rational voice.

I am constantly appalled that so much SF has become a RW venue, when in its origins it strongly tended to be democratic (both little d and big D), urban and liberal. And above all, rational.

Maybe that's what came of the first astronauts being drawn from the military.

[n2doc]

3. When SF became a big business it lost its heart

Having been an SF fan from the time I could read (literally, I was reading Arthur C Clarke and Asimov before I was 7) It is really sad looking at the Amazon SF page. Page after page of "sequels", derivative trash based on movies and TV shows, and most of the old lions gone or taking the easy road by re-writing their old stories over and over (i.e. Larry Niven). I know people have to make a living, but it seems like the good stuff is really hard to find now.

[bryant69]

4. I don't think that's necessarily accurate

I mean the big names in the early business included Asimov and Clark, but also Heinlien, who was at best libertarian and who could be down right conservative in some of what he said (big fan of Missile Defense for example (full disclaimer, I am a big Hienlien fan). Sci-Fi has always attracted a range of political opinions.

Bryant

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. Of course, there were exceptions like Heinlein and even

L Ron Hubbard (tho i maintain that Hubbard was just nuts, Dianetics and Scientology supposedly came out of a conversation he had with Heinlein about 'creating your own religion'; and Heinlein was far more libertarian than conservative - just look at SIASL, Time Enough for Love; and he was vehement against the religious moralists - Nehemiah Scudder comes to mind). I guess I'm thinking about that crowd that grew up in NY in the 20s and 30s with Asimov, wrote for Astounding Stories -- lower middle-class, liberal, mostly Jewish, like Kornbluth and Poul Anderson (or was it Frederik Pohl?). The stories that Asimov told about that group in a couple of his books are fascinating. Then the next generation, with Ted Sturgeon and Philip Dick. Of couse, in SF writing time, a generation is about 15 years, making Niven third generation.

But it did seem to me that there was a shift in the late 70s and beyond where more and more SF tended toward the right.

ON EDIT:

And Thanks! to the donors of my hearts.

:hug: :grouphug:

[bryant69]

6. I would have to go do some looking up authors

To verify or reject this theory. The more recent authors i like are people like Varley or Gibson or Williamson - who I don't know if you can characterize as Conservative? Gibson does predict the rice of corporate statehood, but he doesn't seem happy about it. On the other hand he is a bit of a social darwinist I suppose. .

I don't read Sci-Fi as vorociously as I once did, and even when I do I tend to get books from the 1960s 1970s.

I will say though that if we think Astronauts being military might have helped this along, you could also include the fact that in the 1970s and 80s you had a number of liberals commenting that we were wasting our money on NASA. That probably didn't help either.

Bryant

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. You know, thinking about it, I'm hard pressed to come up with

any great number of R leaning authors, except Orson Scott Card. I guess part of it was my experience at going to Cons and finding large numbers of fans who were espousing RW views - of course, that was in the 80s when so many were worshipping St Ronnie. Then there was David Drake and his ilk of military fiction, dressed up is SF garb. I drifted away from SF, and began delving more into fantasy.

So maybe it was just my impression, with no basis in reality.

As for libs abandoning space, that's one of the great disappointments of my life.

[bryant69]

8. Yeah that's sort of my position too

Actually haven't read any Sci Fi in years but just got back into it because a good bookstore opened up - and they have these books that fascinate me - crap 70s sci fi - pretty entertaining in a weird sort of way.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. If I can put in a word for my favourite SF author Iain M. Banks - definitely liberal

Take his description of "The Culture" - the space-faring civilisation in which many of his SF books (he also writes 'mainstream', without the 'M.' in his name) are set:

Let me state here a personal conviction that appears, right now, to be profoundly unfashionable; which is that a planned economy can be more productive - and more morally desirable - than one left to market forces. The market is a good example of evolution in action; the try-everything-and-see-what-works approach. This might provide a perfectly morally satisfactory resource-management system so long as there was absolutely no question of any sentient creature ever being treated purely as one of those resources. The market, for all its (profoundly inelegant) complexities, remains a crude and essentially blind system, and is - without the sort of drastic amendments liable to cripple the economic efficacy which is its greatest claimed asset - intrinsically incapable of distinguishing between simple non-use of matter resulting from processal superfluity and the acute, prolonged and wide-spread suffering of conscious beings.

It is, arguably, in the elevation of this profoundly mechanistic (and in that sense perversely innocent) system to a position above all other moral, philosophical and political values and considerations that humankind displays most convincingly both its present intellectual (immaturity and) - through grossly pursued selfishness rather than the applied hatred of others - a kind of synthetic evil.

Intelligence, which is capable of looking farther ahead than the next aggressive mutation, can set up long-term aims and work towards them; the same amount of raw invention that bursts in all directions from the market can be - to some degree - channelled and directed, so that while the market merely shines (and the feudal gutters), the planned lases, reaching out coherently and efficiently towards agreed-on goals. What is vital for such a scheme, however, and what was always missing in the planned economies of our world's experience, is the continual, intimate and decisive participation of the mass of the citizenry in determining these goals, and designing as well as implementing the plans which should lead towards them.

Of course, there is a place for serendipity and chance in any sensibly envisaged plan, and the degree to which this would affect the higher functions of a democratically designed economy would be one of the most important parameters to be set... but just as the information we have stored in our libraries and institutions has undeniably outgrown (if not outweighed) that resident in our genes, and just as we may, within a century of the invention of electronics, duplicate - through machine sentience - a process which evolution took billions of years to achieve, so we shall one day abandon the grossly targeted vagaries of the market for the precision creation of the planned economy.

The Culture, of course, has gone beyond even that, to an economy so much a part of society it is hardly worthy of a separate definition, and which is limited only by imagination, philosophy (and manners), and the idea of minimally wasteful elegance; a kind of galactic ecological awareness allied to a desire to create beauty and goodness.

A Few Notes on The Culture

[bryant69]

11. My Favorite is Cordwainer Smith

Author of "Scanners Live in Vain", "The Burning of the Brain", "Golden the Ship Was-Oh! Oh! Oh!", "The Dead Lady of Clown Town", "The Ballad of Lost C'mell", and Norstrilia." Somewhat of a checkered past given that he wrote a classic text on Psychological Warfare and did undocumented work for the CIA, before retiring to Australia to write.

I'm reading this page on the Culture- it's certainly interesting.

Bryant

[Zebedeo]

10. I didn't realize Azimov had such poor reasoning abilities

He somehow went through 61 years of life without learning even the most basic concept of Christianity - that people are saved by faith in Christ, not because they earned the right to eternal life by helping a blind man cross the street. Either he is incredibly dense and uninformed on this issue, or he is intentionally misrepresenting the beliefs of Christians.

He makes ludicrous logical errors, such as:

"If no one who disbelieves in God and in an afterlife can possibly be trusted, it seems to follow that those who do believe in God and in an afterlife can be trusted."

That is equivalent to: "If no dog is a reptile, it follows that all non-dogs are reptiles." What a brilliant thinker!

[bryant69]

12. That's what Reagan said

In fairness - I agree that that is a shallow interpretation of Christianity, but Reagan is the one who characterized his faith that way. He was merely responding to that interpretation.

Bryant

[YankeyMCC]

13. He was criticizing Reagan's proposition not christianity or theism in general

in general in that piece.

[WhollyHeretic]

14. I can't believe you have such poor reading comprehension skills

:eyes:

[Zebedeo]

15. Oh, yeah?

Why don't you point out something about my post that supports your accusation that I have poor reading comprehension skills?

You can't? I understand.

[WhollyHeretic]

16. It was already pointed out in the two posts above mine

I see you conveniently didn't respond to them.

I guess you didn't have a response to them in your missionary playbook.

[Zebedeo]

17. Those responses were not pertinent to your post

Azimov's screed is indeed directed at Reagan, but it also displays a total misunderstanding - or misrepresentation - of the central tenet of Christianity - that salvation is through the grace of God through faith in Christ, and that a place in Heaven cannot be earned by doing good works. That's why I said:

He somehow went through 61 years of life without learning even the most basic concept of Christianity - that people are saved by faith in Christ, not because they earned the right to eternal life by helping a blind man cross the street. Either he is incredibly dense and uninformed on this issue, or he is intentionally misrepresenting the beliefs of Christians.

My criticism of his diatribe is valid, and so your insult that I lack reading comprehension skills is not supportable.

My only other comments in my original post were:

He makes ludicrous logical errors, such as:

"If no one who disbelieves in God and in an afterlife can possibly be trusted, it seems to follow that those who do believe in God and in an afterlife can be trusted."

That is equivalent to: "If no dog is a reptile, it follows that all non-dogs are reptiles." What a brilliant thinker!

Even you should be able to see that Azimov here makes a logical error of astounding idiocy. And no, it is not the case that he was just repeated what Reagan had said. He took what Reagan said about the Soviets being untrustworthy because they didn't believe in God, and made the invalid logical leap to the premise that all believers in God are trustworthy. Then he deconstructed that strawman that he had created with his infantile illogic. Can't you see that?

As for your reference to a "missionary playbook," I hardly see how you could call me a missionary. I am just a Christian who on occasion defends Christian principles on this message board, which is at times overtly hostile to Christians and Christianity.

I guess from your posts that you are one of the hostile ones. I hope you learn to deal with whatever makes you that way.

[WhollyHeretic]

18. Trotting out the Republican mantra about religion-hating liberals

:eyes:
This is a political website and you have never posted about anything other than religion. I have little patience for internet missionaries.

[WhollyHeretic]

19. Also, they are completely pertinent

The whole quote you refer to "Instead, according to the Reagan Doctrine, anytime we meet someone who pays his debts, or hands in a wallet he found in the street, or stops to help a blind man cross the road, or tells a casual truth -- he's just buying himself a ticket to heaven, or else canceling out a demerit that might send him to hell. It's all a matter of good, solid business practice; a matter of turning a spiritual profit and of responding prudently to spiritual blackmail."

Was that so hard?

And as far as your other example about trusting religious people. It is pretty obvious that Reagan and his ilk felt exactly this way.

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. The clue in is the title: "The Reagan Doctrine"

The whole article is clearly about Reagan's claim that godless communists are inherently untrustworthy. He frequently refers the Reagan in the text: for instance, the sentence before the quote you pulled out is "But let's take the reverse of the Reagan Doctrine." At no point does he turn this into an attack on Christian principles (though he does point out how capable Christians are of disagreeing with each other, sometimes violently). Far from a strawman, he's attacking a very real target - Ronald Reagan (mentioned 18 times in the piece). The very last sentence, summing up the piece, is "Next they'll be saying that Ronald Reagan (our very own president) doesn't know what he's talking about."

And that's precisely his point - Reagan didn't know what he was talking about. Unfortunately, your comprehension really does seem poor; everyone else has understood that.

'Missionary'? It seems to fit your pride at converting a Hindu to Christianity quite well. Your participation on this board is overwhelmingly in religious discussion (largely saying "Christianity is The Truth, and faith in God is all that matters", with little discussion about society or individuals), with no apparent political opinions at all. You do look like someone determined to walk among the heathen and convert them.

[Zebedeo]

26. Azimov should have written a piece in which he pointed out why

what Reagan said was wrong. Instead, he put words into Reagan's mouth that neither Reagan nor anyone else had said, and pointed out why those words were wrong. See my post #24 in this thread.

My participation at DU is predominantly in R&T. I lurk on the other forums, but rarely post anything. But I don't take pride in converting anyone to Christianity, because I have never converted anyone to Christianity. A person can only come to Christ if they have a sincere change of heart on their own. I have no power over the beliefs of others, nor would I want to have any such power. It would be useless, because it would be meaningless.

[trotsky]

36. Hey, Zeb?

Can you list things you liked and didn't like about Reagan? Just curious.

[YankeyMCC]

21. My response was exactly the point of GreenJ's post

Your reading comprehension appears to be so poor as to not understand the points you are quoting for attack are the points in Reagan's proposition that Asimov is attacking.

And your knowledge of Mr Asimov is also apparently extremely limited.

If you're going to accuse someone as accomplished and widely recognized as brilliant as a fiction and Science Fact writer of faulty logic I suggest you learn a bit of logic yourself.

[Zebedeo]

25. Wrong again.

Azimov made a leap of illogic that was in no way justified by Reagan's statement.

He says that Reagan said that all Godless people are untrustworthy. That is the "point in Reagan's proposition," as you put it. He then spent the entire rest of his piece discussing not that "point" but a totally different "point" that he made up: That all believers in God are trustworthy. But you see, the two statements are not equivocal, nor does one follow logically from the other. Look at it this way:

Statement 1: "All ravens are black."
Statement 2: "All non-ravens are not black."

Do you think that Statement 2 follows logically from Statement 1? It doesn't.

Now replace "ravens" with "Godless people" and replace "black" with "untrustworthy."

See it now? Brilliant genius Isaac Azimov made an obvious error of logic, either accidentally or on purpose. If accidental, it is an embarrasing error. If on purpose, it reveals that his real desire was to trash believers, and particularly Christians, by building a strawman "all believers in God are trustworthy" and then tearing the strawman down. The trouble is that neither Reagan, nor anyone else, said that "all believers in God are trustworthy."

Now, on to another point:

The statement that "all believers in God are trustworthy" is antithetical to the beliefs of Christians. An obvious example is that Satan is a believer in God, and he is anything but trustworthy.

[YankeyMCC]

27. No you're wrong and rather foolish

statement 2 was exactly the point Reagan was making the the point Asimov is critical of.

[Zebedeo]

28. If that is true, I'm sure you will have no trouble providing a link

documenting the fact that Reagan or anyone else ever said that "all believers in God are trustworthy" or any words to that effect.

[YankeyMCC]

30. Detached from reality are you?

You don't think people in this nation - the world in general actually - distrust atheists?

There happened to be survey recently showing the people don't trust atheists in this nation: http://pewforum.org/docs/index.php?DocID=26

It is clear from Reagan's history and intent that the idea that atheists can Not be trusted was exactly his point.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/steigerwald//s_491530.html
Ronald Reagan was appalled by the institutionalized atheism of the Soviet system. What Mikhail Gorbachev called "the war on religion" was indeed a war on religion. And it was that that for Reagan convinced Reagan this was not just a bad place, this was in fact an actual "Evil Empire."

http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110005203

"There is sin and evil in the world," he told the evangelicals in March 1983, "and we're enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might." He saw his confrontation with communism as a spiritual one. He told a joint session of the Irish National Parliament in June 1984 that the "struggle between freedom and totalitarianism today" was ultimately not a test of arms or missiles "but a test of faith and spirit." It was, he said, a "spiritual struggle." The Soviets did not fail to notice such rhetoric. Their official news agency, Tass, declared: "President Reagan uses religion with particular zeal to back his anti-Soviet policy."


George Bush responded to question about non-religious people as follows:

"...Faith in God is important to me... I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."

http://www.ethicalatheist.com/docs/separation_church_state.html

"The Constitution of the United States, for instance, is a marvelous document for self-government by the Christian people. But the minute you turn the document into the hands of non-Christian people and atheistic people they can use it to destroy the very foundation of our society. And that's what's been happening."
- Pat Robertson, The 700 Club television program, December 30, 1981

"Individual Christians are the only ones really -- and Jewish people, those who trust God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob -- are the only ones that are qualified to have the reign, because hopefully, they will be governed by God and submit to Him."
- Pat Robertson, The 700 Club television program, January 11, 1985, defending his stance that only Christians and Jews are fit to hold public office

"God, the source of all knowledge, should never have been expelled from our children's classrooms."
- Ronald Reagan, address, National Religious Broadcasters, Washington, D.C., January, 1984, quoted from Menendez and Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom
(So atheists who do not accept god can not be the source of knowledge or know the truth according to Reagan)


"We receive our rights from God."

"The decision points up the fact that we need common-sense judges who understand that our rights were derived from God. Those are the kind of judges I intend to put on the bench."

- George W. Bush, in statements to reporters with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Note: Putin is an atheist.) Bush was criticizing the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision that references to God make reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in schools unconstitutional. June 26, 2002
(so atheists can't be trusted to be judges)

"When I said during my presidential bid that I would only bring Christians and Jews into the government, I hit a firestorm. "What do you mean?" the media challenged me. "You're not going to bring atheists into the government? How dare you maintain that those who believe in the Judeo-Christian values are better qualified to govern America than Hindus and Muslims?" My simple answer is, "Yes, they are."
- Pat Robertson, The New World Order, p. 218


Try this one to: Is Bigotry Against Atheists OK? - http://atheism.about.com/b/a/140399.htm

Or this: Republican Party of Texas: Officially Bigoted Against Atheists http://atheism.about.com/b/a/258330.htm


I've done enough homework for you I have more important things to concern myself with. Look up State Political party platforms particularly the state republican parties you'll see a lot of atheist exclusion there. Also in many state constitutions.

But somehow I suspect that you could be shown transcript and video of people defaming atheists and nailing them to a cross and you'd find an excuse for it or deny the evidence was valid.

[Zebedeo]

31. You are making the same mistake as Azimov

I asked for a link documenting the fact that Reagan or anyone else ever said that "all believers in God are trustworthy" or any words to that effect.

You provided many links to people saying that atheists can't be trusted, but no links or evidence of anyone ever saying that all believers in God are trustworthy.

These are two entirely different concepts, and one does not follow logically from the other. Consider the following:

Statement 1: "All ravens are black."
Statement 2: "All non-ravens are not black."

Do you think that Statement 2 follows logically from Statement 1? It doesn't.

Now replace "ravens" with "Godless people" and replace "black" with "untrustworthy."

Azimov made an obvious error of logic, either accidentally or on purpose. If accidental, it is an embarrasing error. If on purpose, it reveals that his real desire was to trash believers, and particularly Christians, by building a strawman "all believers in God are trustworthy" and then tearing the strawman down. The trouble is that neither Reagan, nor anyone else, said that "all believers in God are trustworthy."

[YankeyMCC]

32. Thanks for proving my point...have a good night nt

[TRYPHO]

33. Can I ask a question?

Zebedeo writes: You provided many links to people saying that atheists can't be trusted, but no links or evidence of anyone ever saying that all believers in God are trustworthy.

Do YOU think that if someone goes around claiming to be a bigtime, loud-about-it, shouting-from-the-rafter Christian says "non-Christians are bad" do YOU think, do YOU understand that there IS an implication, as a given, in the statement, dependent upon the person making the statement?

Just wonderring if YOU can see the link between someone stating a negative but who is known to profess the unstated (and thereby implied) associated positive?

Let me know, as I think it will help others in this debate.

TRYPHO

[Zebedeo]

34. There is no such implication

Saying that no dogs are ten feet tall does not in any way "imply" that all non-dogs are ten feet tall.

[TRYPHO]

35. OK, now I understand - you are just BLIND/DEAF/DUMB to the obvious.

A CHRISTIAN says non-christians are bad HAS an inherent implication. It does, and you deny it.

Therefore I too bow out discussing this any further with you.

Enjoy yourself in all you do, I shall put you on my ignore list,

TRYPHO

[cosmik debris]

23. You seem to believe that you have the final answer

For centuries Christians have debated whether you get to heaven by faith or by works. Now you come along and tell us the final answer. I'm glad that that debate is settled. I'm sure that every Christian in the world agrees with you on that.

That's what I love about some Christians. They believe that their opinion is the final answer. It makes it a lot easier to laugh at them.

[Zebedeo]

24. And you, by contrast

don't believe your opinions are the final answer?

Frankly, I have yet to see evidence of that.

[RaleighNCDUer]

22. WTF??

"He makes ludicrous logical errors, such as:

"If no one who disbelieves in God and in an afterlife can possibly be trusted, it seems to follow that those who do believe in God and in an afterlife can be trusted."

That is equivalent to: "If no dog is a reptile, it follows that all non-dogs are reptiles." What a brilliant thinker!"

That is a profound misreading of what Azimov was saying. He is obviously pointing out the clear fallacy that no one who disbelieves can be trusted. It is just as fallacious to think that no disbelievers can be trusted as it is to think that all believers can be trusted.

The only way you can object to that statement is if you, yourself, agree with Reagan that no disbelievers can be trusted - that disbelievers are inherently evil and untrustworthy.

And you might consider the irony of criticizing the intellectual capabilities of a man with a 169 IQ.

[TRYPHO]

29. What I love about DU (and R/T in particular)...

Is the lengths people will go to to make a simple point, and then defend it to the death.

People are fascinating, I'd have turned the other cheek after round two.

TRYPHO