Christopher Hitchens hardly got it right, unless you think that atheism means the absence of political division.  And not even Hitchens is foolish enough to believe that.

Mr. Brown,

If all you are worried about is “divisiveness,” we could end divisiveness as readily by a return to traditional Christian morality as by its abandonment.  Since you and Mr. Hitchens aren’t willing to countenance a return to traditional Christian morality, I can only conclude that your objection is to Christianity, and not “divisiveness.”

And it is always interesting to see what issues aren’t worth fighting over.  Whether millions of unborn children are butchered in the womb is of no consequence, as is a judicial assault on the very definition of the bedrock institution of our (or any) society.  But wheher we tinker with tax rates is a matter of enormous concern.

Mr. Brown,

Pat Buchanan focuses on two issues in this column, abortion and “gay marriage.” When I was born, abortion was illegal in all fifty states, and no state recognized “homosexual marriage.” This legal consensus was reflective of a social consensus grounded in Christian morality. Indeed, any public figure who had suggested legal recognition of “homosexual marriage” would have ended his career with that statement.

The fact that there is now public controversy over these issues is hardly the fault of Christians, since it has been secular leftists, not Christians, who worked assiduously to undermine what had been the Christian moral foundation of our country.  Arguing that this controversy would disappear if religion were to disappear is as correct as arguing that this controversy would disappear if leftism were to disappear.

Since you are not also attacking social leftism as a source of division in American life, it is apparent that you are not concerned about division over these issues per se but over the reluctance of many Americans to accept the leftist view on these issues, and that your real target is the same as Hitchens’ real target, Christianity.

Mr. Brown,

If you don’t wish to be mistaken for an anti-Christian atheist, I’d advise you not to begin a discussion concerning religion by announcing that “Christopher Hitchens got it right after all” and that “Atheism gives one less thing to fight about.”

Tom, are you suggesting that atheism hasn’t brought peace and goodwill toward men to Hitchens?

M. Nucci,

As you might recall, I set out my views on Hitchens’ atheism at some length here:  http://www.takimag.com/site/article/hitchens_hubris/

Obama has been listening to the “populist” Democrat Party strategists who advise the way to
electoral success is stressing “populist” social and economic issues. Rudy Taxeria is the
most prominant among them. I would agree, that in his heart he’s a Harvard Ivory Tower Liberal
and of course, his church of choice for 40 years have been the “Church of What’s Happening Now”.

But yakking about “social issues” sure has worked for Republicans since Nixon. Republicans like Dick Cheney (pro-Gay Marriage, pro-abortion-on-demand, thinks all West Virginians marry their cousins) don’t give a dang about “social issues” or the economic security of American working folks.

Republicans do nothing for the social issues, and almost everything to destroy America’s economic sovereignty. They talk like populists, but govern like Oligarchs.

Obama figures if the people can be so dumb as to elect Republicans like Bush2 by “professing his faither”, then
why would it not work for him?

Of course, I’m voting for Obama, ‘cause as bad as Obama is, he’s not as disingenuous and lying
sneaky Republicans like McCAin, who will do everything he can to “reach out” to the people who
won’t vote for him like blacks and browns--while he trashes the hopes and dreams of the people that do vote for him. At least we’ll know what he have with Obama. I’m sick of sneaky lying Republicans.

Opps...typo. I mean Bush2--the drunken playboy til he was 30---can win the votes of white working class
folks by merely “professing his faith"--not his father I mean. Obama figures if they are that’
dumb to believe someone as shallow and transparent as Bush2, they’ll believe Obama if he plays
the same game.

There can be no peaceful coexistence in a cultural war because it is at root a religious war.

There must be. Our dogmas are killing us. The biggest problem with revisiting belligeratopiaas devastating and complete as The Hundred Years War? Today, should worse come to worst, it wouldn’t last 100 minutes.

We got rid of Sid Cundiff and Adrianna. How much longer do we have to put up with McBrown and his pseudo-intellectualism?

Atheists and liberal secular extremists like to believe religion in its entirety amounts to a false consciousness, a false construct, a charlatan grift, and is the root source of most conflict and evil. What they fail to acknowledge is that the longing for God is as innate in humanity as the longing for sunlight, and organized religion is merely an expression of man’s collective values and yearnings. Abolishing religion will destroy neither. And the values of secular humanism, for example, are themselves now the subject of religious devotion for many, as are political parties. Calling them irreligious does not change their character.

Besides, the attempt to outlaw religion has already been made—by the Communists. Not coincidentally, Communism was the most murderous belief system in history.

But I agree with mcbrown that the State just as aggressively seeks the souls of men as does the Church, and that the two are ultimately competitors, as it should be. But the problem today is that the Church is getting its butt kicked by the State, which has the systemic advantages built in including police powers, taxation, law writing, public school indoctrination, etc. The Church is also under siege by extremist Capitalism, which doesn’t like the idea of morality getting in the way of its money making. In fact, extremist capitalists are in many ways working as a in conjunction with government to replace Christianity as the foundation of our civilization, and to wrench open new markets and propagate established ones. As we are seeing both in Iraq, and in increasingly hedonistic, morally bankrupt modern America, this is an unmitigated disaster that is only going to get worse. The lack of morality inherent in our current foreign policy can probably be directly traced to the lack of social morality in America. Crazed nihilism at home produces crazed nihilism abroad, or at least enables it.

We need to cut back the State as far as possible to level the playing field and allow the Church a chance to compete again. Neither Obama nor McCain would be interested in such an idea. Nor, I think, would any mainstream Republicans or Democrats, who like their high pontiff positions within the State.

This country is supposed to be a mosaic of extremely eccentric states.  If the Constitution was followed as it should, then the Feds would have no say in either marriage or abortion, and Americans would vote with their feet.

I’ll vote for Chuck Baldwin, Ralph Nader OR Cynthia McKinney before I vote for either McKerry or Obamania. 

END the war,
T0 balance the budget,
& SAVE the $,
while SEALing the border
to SAVE American wages,
and LOWER taxes on those making less than 50k/yr to zero.

& you know what Pat, you can balance the budget on those who make up the top one percent while you’re at it. 

We’ve got serious problems and if Vermont and Cali want to be a magnet for Pat’s favourites ... well power to ‘em.  Meantime, the Bush admin has added THREE TRILLION in debt making his crooked friends rich.
WE HAVE TO END THE WAR AND BALANCE THE BUDGET LIKE RON PAUL SAID OR THE $ IS TOAST! 

Y’all better do something about the two leading WarMongers. Personally, I think Mary Magdalene gets off easy, since God smiles more easily on WhoreMongers.

“In Catholicism, this is the heresy of indifferentism, which holds that one religion is just as good as another and all religions can be a path to salvation. The Pew poll out last week reveals that 82 percent of Protestants believe there are multiple paths to salvation, as do 79 percent of Catholics and 57 percent of evangelicals. “

Um, if that’s the case whose supposed to fight on the side on the conservative side in these religous wars Pat assures us we’ll be fighting forever?

Let’s try that again…

Um, if that’s the case then who is supposed to fight on the conservative side of the religious wars Pat assures us we’ll be forever fighting?

Brown: “To objectively point that out is not to villify it.  That’s the same as saying I think rain is bad, because I noted that it causes floods.”

Fascinating logic!

I can also objectively point out that secular ideas/movements have killed hundreds of millions in the past hundred years AND that atheism was used as a vehicle for oppression and genocide.

Therefore, take away one idea/catalyst and another another will appear to create for division and death.

If you think otherwise, Brown, you are a fool.

Brown, again:

“Tom Piatak, Your comments are non-sensical.  You propose that there would be no “divisiveness” (your word, not mine) if everyone “returned to traditional Christian morality”.  Which is what, exactly?

Catholic?  Anglican?  Protestant?  Puritan?”

Talk about intellectual inconsistency....

Which “state” are you talking about, Brown?

Socialist? Social democratic?  Libertarian? Green?  Conservative?  Communist? Totalitarian? Interventionist?  Pacifist?

Last time I checked, the “state” has killed more humans and created more division than any “religion.”

Look where Hitchen’s moral compass has left him...a liberal warmonger out for blood. Sure Buchanan has it wrong in this article. If Buchanan thinks Sir Thomas Moore was so noble he should read “Daughter of time”. The Sainted Thomas Moore was a cynical politician who got caught on the wrong side. And the evils of Gandhi’s peaceful civil disobedience is not what Christ was talking about in his sermon on the mount.

But at least Pat Buchanan was against the Iraq war from the beginning. Pat’s moral compass appears to have served him well at least in that case.

“There are enough things to be divided about.  Hitchens’ point was that religion is one more than necessary. “

I’ll take your false premise and properly re-order it:  Of all the things about which to be divided, only religion is worthy of argument.

Absent religion, absent the fight for the true ordering of man according to his divine origin, then all the divisions you wish to elevate are the petty divisions of vice: Greed, Lust, Sloth, etc.

In this sense, Hitchens (and you) don’t merely miss the point, you’ve missed the fight.

Indifferentism, Pat’s primary target, is precisely the point at which the “state” wins.

Obama is peddling indifferentism masquerading as some sort of Christian evolution… and doing so fairly effectively it seems.

Part of Pat’s concern, it seems, is that an Obama victory would then be a victory of the State against the common man.

When we man the barricades it will be against the State and the organizing force will be religion.

mcbrown: “Christopher Hitchens got it right after all...Atheism gives one less thing to fight about...Religious disputes have been the cause war, death and all manner of ills.  Absent a one religion world, religion will continue to be the cause of more of the same.”

mcbrown is just playing Debate Team 101 word games. He’s probably an aspiring lawyer. These stunted liberal atheist types always remind me of bored adolescent girls relentlessly hectoring their mothers on some inconsistent application of a household rule while daddy is at work. Grow up.

From the perspective of a religious believer, it doesn’t matter whether or to what extent religious belief has been the cause of wars, genocides or other evils.  If the faith is true, it’s our duty to remain true to it, whatever might be done in its name.  It’s not like debating whether the adoption of the income tax was, on balance, a positive or negative thing.

What I wrote, mcbrown, and what you parsed and took out of context in an adolescent pique, is this:  “the longing for God is as innate in humanity as the longing for sunlight, and organized religion is merely an expression of man’s collective values and yearnings.” Perhaps I should have included (the redundant) “God inspired collective values...” for the intellectually challenged such as yourself.

Again: Grow up.

McBrown,

My own point of view, as a Protestant, is that “the Church” (however that term is understood) is, like any other institution populated by human beings, fallible and open to good-faith, honest challenge guided by conscience.  I suspect that Catholics on this site might see things differently, but perhaps one or more of them might speak up on this point.

Rereading what I posted earlier, I guess I should amend that just slightly to say that a believer remains true regardless of what might be done by people falsely claiming to be acting in the name of his faith.  I’m proud of the values my faith stands for, and I can’t imagine having it otherwise.

On the idea that “religion is merely an expression of man’s [God inspired] collective values and yearnings,” I have no problem conceding that other religions may be inspired by God. Christianity grew out of Judaism, for example. From my perspective, other religions can help inform, define and distinguish Christianity, and Christianity is the long term destination towards which all others are leading. But I don’t think Christianity needs to be jammed down anyone’s throat; rather, it needs to lead by example. It will attract followers with its goodness the way Western (Christian) civilization has attracted millions of all races and creeds from all over the globe and given them a better life than they ever could have dreamed of in their native lands.

Secular humanism, atheism and other materialist creeds do not contain Christianity’s innate goodness, and their imposition on Western civilization either by design or by default would be a humanitarian disaster that would set the world back indefinitely.

But that doesn’t seem to bother liberal atheists; of primacy to them is their own short-term gratification. Narcissism is their creed.

Mcbrown, if you truly believe “the ‘Final Battle’ will be between government and religion,” and you spend an inordinate amount of time and energy tearing down religion, doesn’t that make you a stooge for government?

OOMMMMM.

Yawn.....I do so miss Sid and Adrienna. Hitchens is such a drunken bore. Pat is his intellectual and moral superior.

Chris,

Give it up. In your battle of wits with McBrown - you’re fighting an unarmed man.

mcbrown: “It sounds like Christopher Hitchens got it right after all. There are enough things to be divided about.  Hitchens’ point was that religion is one more than necessary.  And that if pops up again and again.  Atheism gives one less thing to fight about.  Since no one will know the Answer, until the hereafter, what is the advantageo of taking to the barricades over it?”

All you “merely pointed out” was an advocacy of atheism. You have that in common with the Communists. Your intellectual compatriot, Hitchens, is a warmongering “ex-Tryotskyite” and currently an “antitheist” who describes himself as a believer in the values of secularism and humanism, according to Wikipedia.

He is also a warmongering advocate of the Iraq war, which is consistent with both Tryotskyism and his current professed incarnation as a secular humanist.

How does “atheism give us one less thing to fight about” if atheistic leaders are bent on violently crushing religion, as the Soviets attempted to do to Christianity, and as “secular humanists” and their pseudo-religous, statist, mostly ex-Trotskyite Neocon partners are attempting to do to Muslims in the Mideast?

Atheists are probably the most hate-filled intellectual frauds to ever walk the earth, and it shows.

mcbrown: “Who are the atheistic leaders you speak of?”

To start with, the man whose ideas you champion, “ex-Tryotskyite” (and author of the bestseller resting on nearly every dedicated atheist’s bookshelf-including your own?-The God Delusion, How Religion Poisons Everything) Christopher Hitchens; to continue, “ex-Trotskyite” instigators of wars against Muslims, the Neocons.

They never dropped their anti-Christian, anti-religious ways, they merely changed their packaging. But the religions they seem to hate the most are those that proselytize, because that means they compete with their Godless, materialist State, the same kind of State you champion.

I thought my post would have made that clear, comrade.

Whoops, my bad. I got my atheist leaders mixed up.

Hitchens wrote God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything; Richard Dawkins, another “secular humanist” (and evolutionary biologist in the vein of Hitler) wrote The God Delusion.

All these atheistic sociopaths just tend to blend together.

Dobson may object to Obama’s bloody notion of what is right with regard to the life of tiny babies, but Dobson’s notion of what is right with regard to the life of small children is equally bloody. His books advocate what is unambiguously child abuse, whippings - his word - with all sorts of implements of children as young as 18 months old for the most trivial of offenses, including obviously innocent mistakes. Dobson is one of the most evil men who has ever lived.

Although I disagree with Dr. Dobson’s politics, I have to correct Joyce on her criticism of Dobson’s child-rearing.  Dr. Dobson said that spanking a child is okay if the child is “deliberately disobedient”.  That is, if the child told mom or dad “no, I’m not going to do that.” He didn’t advocate physical punishment for any reason other than ‘deliberate disobedience’.  He never said spank a child for ‘spilling milk’ etc.  His advice was, and is, sound advice.  He also stated that physical punishment will have no effect if the child is too young to understand the reason for spanking and he also said that a child over the age of 8 to 10 is too old to be spanked, because there are more effective punishments for chldren that age.  He in no way ever advocated child abuse. 

He also said that a paddle would be more effective than a parents hand because of the pychologocial associations a child would have.  He also said that you must speak to your child and comfort them and teach them the reasons for the spanking.  I considered his advice sound and would recommend it to parents.

There is a big difference between spanking and child abuse and Dobson would never advocate abuse.