Nov 28 2007
It That Will Not Be Asked
Last month, I did a bit on Mike Huckabee in regards to his creationist beliefs and how they reflect on his overall judgement, and how important it is that we require that our next President be one grounded in reality. Over at the Chimp, Steven Pizzo reflects on the questions that really must be asked of Huckabee and Romney, the two GOP candidates most stricken with the God virus:
For example, does he really believe, as the BoM states, that that American Indians (”Lamanites” as described in the BoM,) were one of the lost tribes of Israel, and were direct descendants of pre-Columbian Judeo-Israelite colonists who fled to the American continent around 400 AD? Does he believe this central tenet of the Mormon faith? And if so, how can he believe it since DNA testing has proven beyond doubt that America Indians actually descended, not from Semitic lines ,but rather Asian and Eurasian linage? I want to hear him reason that one through.
I’d eat my shoes to hear someone ask that one. But it’s important. Real important:
Why is that important? Because it tells us a lot about a person’s critical thinking and reasoning. And since the American presidency is an office that is often faced with reasoning through some of mankind’s most potentially deadly matters, wouldn’t you like to know how Mitt’s mind works? Wouldn’t you like to know how he navigates the world or real things with the spirit world he inhabits as a devote Mormon. I sure would like to know.
At the very least I would not want a fellow as president who actually believes that the ancestors of American Indians were, at any time in their history, a part of a worldwide Jewish Diaspora. I sure as hell don’t want someone that gullible and — let’s not mince words — stupid, mucking around in Middle East politics. And I sure don’t think we want someone who defend or otherwise rationalizes the absurd and entirely fictional version of human history making decisions about how we educate our children. (So, call me picky.)
But of course, no one will ask that question or anything similar, because it’s just so rude to ask a candidate a tough question about their faith. The fact that they continually bring it up at every opportunity is just so darn genteel, I suppose.
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You better get these questions asked BEFORE the Senate passes its version of HR 1955. Otherwise, you’re toast, my friend. They won’t call you rude. They’ll call you a homegrown terrorist. Ah, remember the good old days when “homegrown” meant something positive….
Oh, I know, my friend. AS far as I know it hasn’t been introduced in the Senate, but when it is, we all need to do a full-court press on Sanders and Leahy.
In the grand scheme of things, I really do not think it is a winning issue for Atheists to claim that one cannot reason if one believes in the spiritual realm. Don’t you realize that most people do? I mean, this is about the only uniting factor between all of the different religions, and even people who have no religion, but believe there is something else out there.
If you are just talking about Mormonism, people might be inclined to agree, but I think you are talking about it in a larger sense - that any belief is an indication that one’s capacity to reason is compromised. I do not think you will find most people on your side with that one.
Hey… thanks for stopping by. A few things.
One… first off, science and reason are not popularity contests. The fact that most people are superstitious (and of course there are varying degrees of this) has nothing to do with whether or not those beliefs are true. Every single person on the planet could believe in God and it has no bearing on the facts.
Ok, when one literally believes kooky things such as the many tenets of Mormonism, or, in the face of all evidence, that the earth was created 6,000 years ago in seven days, that most certainly shows a diminished capacity for logical reasoning, for people are believing in things that are, well, made-up stories, and the telling part is that they can’t seem to register that fact. A huge part of critical reasoning is the ability to discern fact from fiction, something obviously lacking if one believes that the dinosaurs co-existed with Adam and Eve, or Joseph Smith translated some Egyptian texts with a “seer stone”.
As usual, more pops out after hitting the ‘post’ button. In terms of questioning those candidates directly (as stated in that article), the intention is not to be a ‘winning strategy’ for atheists. Two things on that:
One, the intent of asking these particular politicians those questions would serve two purposes. First, it would alert the voter who might not know these candidates believe these things about it. When laid out in the open, many of those things would not sit well with the moderate public. Second, it would clearly illustrate how well the candidate’s critical thinking skills are. When Huckabee slings bullshit comparing abortion to the Holocaust, it’s not showing a very sharp mind, and it also shows intelligent voters the kind of people he’s pandering to with that statement.
As far as the new atheistic confrontational style that we’ve heard about so much recently, exemplified by Dawkins, Harris, and others - I don’t think it’s going to ’stamp out religion’. I’m not deluded that religion and superstition are going away any time in the next millennium, although their influence will continue to decline in the more educated parts of the world. I do think, however that that style will at least make progress in pushing hardcore fundamentalist types to the fringes where they rightfully belong.
More likely than not, I’d bet that asking almost ANYONE, Romney for instance, to explain/justify their religion’s finer nuances is likely to show that they claim to "be of" or "believe" in a particular religion or faith and yet don’t really know what it’s about, why, and how that squares against the truth as science or history see it. Not only does that bring up serious questions about their rational/logical capacities, but it raises some interesting moral questions about their claims to be religious when in fact they only make such claims for self-serving and in-genuine reasons.I mean, Mitt’s a Mormon? More like his parents were maybe, but he’s no more than a greedy, power-hungry politician.
I’m not 100% certain, but I’m pretty sureHuckabee at least knows a bit about his religion. I see what you’re saying, but regardless of how well they know it, it doesn’t change how silly it is.
Charity, I think you’re missing the point. It isn’t about spirituality. We’re not talking about who believes in spirituality. I’m familiar with Stephen J. Gould’s concept of nonoverlapping magisteria–I don’t think it makes any sense, but it’s pretty much what you’re talking about when you argue that scientific knowledge can’t disprove spiritual beliefs. Even this isn’t really true. For instance, lots of people used to have a spiritual belief that the sun was a chariot driven around the earth, and more recently the Catholic Church had a spiritual belief that the earth is the center of the universe, but know we know, as a matter of scientific fact, that those things weren’t true.
The Mormons make a factual assertion about American Indians and the people they are descended from. This is biology, not spirituality. Similarly, there are people who believe that humans rode dinosaurs around, and took them on Noah’s ark.
Believing it or not says something about how you handle evidence, and what happens if the evidence conflicts with your preconceived ideas about reality. As we’ve seen with our disastrous invasion of Iraq, the consequences of this are pretty important, so I’d like to hear Romney, Huckabee, and these other guys try to answer these questions.