The Liberal God Delusion

[Chris]

Just now flipping through channels and stopped at the New Year's celebration at O'Donnell's Last Word. They were discussing the greatest people of 2012. One talking head among the liberals on the show named Obama and the reason he gave was that Obama's record (not just rhetoric, record) had restored faith in government.

Dawkin's in his anti-religious The God Delusion writes at one point how supports government taking children away from religious parents.

The Liberal God Delusion (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/28/the-liberal-god-delusion.html) begins "Our government has been hijacked by a party obsessed with a higher power. But I’m not talking about GOP. I’m talking about the left and their worship of government." It concludes: "In the wake of Obama’s reelection, unreasoning reliance on federal power distorts our politics far more destructively than simple-minded faith in God. At the moment, big-government fundamentalism poses more of a threat to the republic than religious absolutism."

[Chris]

What possesses you to quote something as crackpot as that ?
Dawkins is an expert in his field , a very clever man and rather obsessed about God . In this instance he has flipped absurdly --- not because his thinking is completely without merit , but because there are so many other matters and circumstances where different sorts of heart less reasons can also be insanely manufactured to theoretically deprive children of love and care .
What about parents who force their kids to read book after book , forgetting that life starts with fresh air , sun and rain and using your senses , not just the midget brain ? Ding Dong .

For the very reason it is crackpot. And not just the idea of taking children away from religious parents but the entire Hegelian adulation of the State as God.

Dawkins is expert in his field, evolutionary biology. That doesn't make him an expert in religion or political science.

[KC]

Please stick to the thread topic or make a contribution to the discussion. See rule #9 of the Political Forums.

[Carygrant]

Dawkins is expert in his field, evolutionary biology. That doesn't make him an expert in religion or political science.



Thanks Chris for repeating my very point .
The question is , as it was .
Take your time .

[Chris]

Thanks Chris for repeating my very point .
The question is , as it was .
Take your time .

Why, you already answered your own question, apparently without being aware of it. Dawkins is a crackpot when it comes to religion and politics. Any Hegalian is a crackpot.

And you're welcome.

[KC]

Thread closed for now.

[KC]

Thread opened for discussion.

[Carygrant]

. Dawkins is a crackpot when it comes to religion and politics. Any Hegalian is a crackpot.
.


Are we all being instructed to accept your bigoted view?
Why not just tell us that you disagree , and , if you must bore me , tell me , why .
It's odd that no respected commentator or critic has ever accused him of being a crackpot .
Some disagree and those wedded to a secular religion trot out their usual set of beliefs which do not really qualify as evidence .
But it will be comforting for the world to know that you have solved matters all on your own .
What size hat do you wear?

[Chris]

Now that the thread is reopened, here is what I consider the source of this liberal faith in God:


I don't know much about G.W.F. Hegel, but the one quote of his that I always remember is "The State is as God walking on Earth". With that memorable phrase in mind, I sought its context to get behind the intent of the full quote as it is reproduced here from his work Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts:

The state in and by itself is the ethical whole, the actualisation of freedom; and it is an absolute end of reason that freedom should be actual. The state is mind on earth and consciously realising itself there. In nature, on the other hand, mind actualises itself only as its own other, as mind asleep. Only when it is present in consciousness, when it knows itself as a really existent object, is it the state. In considering freedom, the starting-point must be not individuality, the single self-consciousness, but only the essence of self-consciousness; for whether man knows it or not, this essence is externally realised as a self-subsistent power in which single individuals are only moments. The march of God in the world, that is what the state is.

In the land of John Knox, we Calvinists love our technical sounding theological terms such as soteriology, infralapsarianism and ontological trinity; perhaps it makes what is essentially a simple faith sound more academic and scientific. But when I considered Hegel's phraseology, another term beloved of the sons of Knox came to mind – the incommunicable attributes of God.

The State As God (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/watson7.html)

And if you socialists don't like that libertarian source, here's a socialist one, Hegel's Philosophy of Right (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/pr/prstate.htm):


The Penates are inward gods, gods of the underworld; the mind of a nation (Athene for instance) is the divine, knowing and willing itself.... The march of God in the world, that is what the state is.... According to this view, the mundane form of government is theocratic, the ruler is also a high priest or God himself; constitution and legislation are at the same time religion, while religious and moral commands, or usages rather, are at the same time natural and positive law. In the magnificence of this r6gime as a whole, individual personality loses its rights and perishes; the external world of nature is either directly divine or else God’s ornament, and the history of the actual is poetry.

[Dr. Who]

People voted for Obama hoping for change, not because they thought he was the second coming, but because he is a man of the people. They were simply sick of the same old rhetoric, coming from the same old rich fat cats, that have been their only choices for the last 30 years. The American public is tired of being lied to, and treated like ignorant children who can`t possibly know what is good for them. Whether or not Obama fulfills the promise of the people is for history to decide, but I wouldn`t read in any lofty philosophical or religious like motivations.

[Agravan]

People voted for Obama hoping for change, not because they thought he was the second coming, but because he is a man of the people. They were simply sick of the same old rhetoric, coming from the same old rich fat cats, that have been their only choices for the last 30 years. The American public is tired of being lied to, and treated like ignorant children who can`t possibly know what is good for them. Whether or not Obama fulfills the promise of the people is for history to decide, but I wouldn`t read in any lofty philosophical or religious like motivations.

Really? Have you missed all the photos where obama is photograghed in such a way as to appear to have a halo? The Newsweek cover where a halo is drawn around his head?
Jamie Foxx declared, “It’s like church over here! First of all, give an honor to God and our Lord and Savior, Barack Obama.”
"I mean in a way Obama's standing above the country, above above the world, he's sort of God." - Evan Thomas, Newsweek editor

[Cigar]

:grin:

[Chris]

People voted for Obama hoping for change, not because they thought he was the second coming, but because he is a man of the people. They were simply sick of the same old rhetoric, coming from the same old rich fat cats, that have been their only choices for the last 30 years. The American public is tired of being lied to, and treated like ignorant children who can`t possibly know what is good for them. Whether or not Obama fulfills the promise of the people is for history to decide, but I wouldn`t read in any lofty philosophical or religious like motivations.

The point of the thread is not that some worship personalities but that they put faith in the state. Try and stick to the topic please.