Bend the knee or else
Yet more astonishingly illiberal bilge, this time from the “rabbinical adviser” of the Jewish Society at Yale – at Yale, generally considered a liberal university in all senses of the word. Yet here is what he has to say:
The president of the United States, like all citizens of this great country, has the right to follow the religion of his or her heart and conscience. As long as our leader pursues peace and justice through faith in the one G-d of us all, a believing president should not only be tolerated but welcomed.
Oh. So if “our leader” fails to have “faith in the one G-d of us all” then an unbelieving president should not be tolerated, let alone welcomed; is that it? Well obviously that is it; that’s the logic of the sentence. So Shmully Hecht really does think we do and should live in a theocracy.
Faithlessness and nihilism are the greatest threats to humanity, and a leader who believes in nothing, or establishes a religion to serve himself or his state, becomes Hitler, Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot; who together murdered and starved over one hundred million human beings.
That’s an extraordinarily outrageous thing to say. The guy is simply asserting that any head of state who does not believe in “God” inevitably becomes a Hitler or Pol Pot – inevitably becomes the kind of person who murders and starves people by the millions. And this revolting, sinister crap is published by the Washington Post – not the Washington Times, but the Post.
Freedom of religion…was not established to advance secularism, as is sometimes implied, but rather to allow diverse faith to flourish unhindered.
That’s a slightly more elevated way of saying “freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion,” a favorite of Joe Lieberman’s among others, and it is of course complete crap. Freedom of religion decidedly does include the freedom to have no religion, and secularism is precisely the medium in which diverse religions can flourish.
In 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower, who was born a Jehovah’s Witness and baptized as a Presbyterian, reaffirmed the importance of faith in this country when he oversaw the addition to our Pledge of Allegiance the crucial words “under G-d.”
Well, no, the words were “under God”; but anyway, so the fuck what? It was 1954, the height of brainless anti-communism and reactive patriotheism, so there was a surge of state-sponsored theism which should have been ruled unconstitutional. We’re not required to collapse in awe at the idea now.
And people wonder why gnu atheists are so gnu. It’s because of guys like this one.
It’s all word-flipping rhetorical games with these people – so how about this: secularism was established to advance freedoms of many kinds, include ridiculous and silly things like religion.
I am continually surprised that believers think that some of their best allies are believers of other faiths, in some cases followers of traditions they would consider blasphemous. Doesn’t a Jew or Muslim cringe at the Catholic incantation of “Holy Mary, Mother of God“? Don’t Christians find the Jewish view of Jesus – as just a man, perhaps a false messiah – repugnant? How do you find common ground with someone who thinks you’re following the wrong religion and are going to hell for your error? Especially if your religion focuses on the afterlife.
That’s an extraordinarily outrageous thing to say. The guy is simply asserting that any head of state who does not believe in “God” inevitably becomes a Hitler or Pol Pot – inevitably becomes the kind of person who murders and starves people by the millions. And this revolting, sinister crap is published by the Washington Post – not the Washington Times, but the Post.
There’s so much stupidity in that selected paragraph that it’s hard to know where to begin. Firstly, he seems to be suggesting that faithless is equivalent to nihilism. They aren’t. Conventional religious logic might suggest that faithlessness leads to nihilism, but I could say the slavishness and groveling of the three “great” religions leads to nihilism as well.
Also, he also doesn’t exactly say that an atheist head of state inevitably becomes a Hitler or a Pol Pot, he cleverly mixes that in with “or establishes a religion to serve himself or his state.” It’s kind of like saying “A religious believer, or a bloodthirsty pyschopath, will come to resemble Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy, Jr. or Jack The Ripper.” The single paragraph is chock-full of so much bullshit.
How on earth can anyone be born a Jehovah’s Witness? This is the stupidity that Dawkins has addressed time and time again, and it is so obviously idiotic read in this context. It seems, however, that Ike didn’t quite leave his JW roots behind, if he oversaw the insertion of the unconstitutional words ‘under God’ (not ‘under G-d’, as you say). (What do people think will happen if they actually type in the letter ‘o’?) Quite aside from this quaint piece of alphabetic reticence, this is complete madness. Complete, utter, empty-headed madness. What has happened to people lately? At one time the religious used at least to pretend to rationality. Now, they don’t even try.
They have more outlets now (just as we do), so there are more opportunities to see the failure to pretend to rationality. Plus we’re in the midst of a global Great Awakening, so it’s fashionable to be not rational.
Dan Fincke (of Camels With Hammers) did a post on this post at Facebook, and there is someone there arguing that the rabbi didn’t mean what he wrote, he meant something nicer, and it’s not nice to criticize him for writing what he did write because it may have just been “poorly worded.”
But he did write what he did write. Why are we supposed to assume people meant something else when they write something illiberal and disgusting? Because nobody ever says anything illiberal and disgusting? Because we write so badly ourselves that we desperately need a “charitable” reading on all occasions?
I don’t get it.
It’s plausible deniability, Kind of like “Nice establishment you got here, shame if anything happened to it. ‘Is that a threat?’ Oh Gee, Gosh no, I’m sure sorry you misconstrued what I said. Ho, ho, ho!” Bull. The good Rabbi knows what he’s saying.
It’s funny to me how religous pronouncements of this sort are so easily refuted by examining the actual world. For example, New Zealand was led for many years by the atheist Helen Clarke but I seem to have missed the piles of corpses. Australia is now in for a similar fate. I suspect this lack of correspondence with reality will trouble the Rabbi not, for reasons that are sadly familiar to readers me this site.
Maybe we can use this “G-d” silliness to our advantage. After all, if it’s somehow blasphemous to write the ‘o’ in “God”, then maybe it’s just as bad to write the ‘d’, or the ‘G’ for that matter. Really, even constructing a sentence that would imply that the word “God” could conceivably be involved somehow is just tempting fate. So if you want to show off just how devout you really are, the only thing to do is never, ever write or talk about God under any circumstances.
Hey, it’s worth a shot.
It’s because they’re in an Alliance of the Faithful
Nick P:
Not to mention that if John Key’s a believer he does a decent job of keeping it to himself, which is what political leader should do with their religious beliefs. Julia Gillard is some kind of non-believer as well.
I think it’s a kind of provincialism that strikes some thinkers in the US and Europe. If it doesn’t happen in one of those two places it doesn’t exist. For instance, during the US health care debate, how many people discussed Singapore’s system, which gets good outcomes for low prices? No, Europe and the US are real places, the rest of the world is just background
Actually the practice of leaving out the o is a continuation of a similar practice in Hebrew. The fear is that if a book or paper containing the name of God (I will take the risk here of assuming that pixels don’t count) falls on the floor it is a profanation of God’s name.
Yeah, I know.
Ophelia @ #6: “I don’t get it.”
Well, you’ll just have to try harder, won’t you? Put aside whatever is distracting you and concentrate.
There’s charitable reading and uncharitable. Try giving fools the benefit of any doubt. For a change.
;-)
I think this bit is pretty awful. This is the kind of demonization that has often been used to justify terrible atrocities against hated minorities. It really is quite simple. If you think something is the greatest threat to humanity, then it must be suppressed or destroyed at all costs. “Group X is a threat to our way of life. Group X is corrupting our nation. Group X wants to destroy our cherished institutions. We must destroy group X before they destroy us!”
Yeah, and we’re the ones showing tendencies of acting like Hitler, Stalin, etc.