It's cliché already to say that one shouldn't discuss religion or politics at dinner parties. Increasingly, however, religion and politics are the same thing. That's partly because liberal religious denominations have been adopting the left's political platforms to substitute for dead articles of faith. And it's also because people seem to make political choices less based on rational calculations of self-interest, and more on millenarian visions of the ideal life, however fanciful.
That's bad, because it means it is increasingly hard to persuade leftists to break away from what is clearly not working in any practical sense. And it also means electing the left means committing society to increasingly extreme policies.
But there is a silver lining: we know how to deal with religious difference, and Western Civilization has known how to do so since the end of the Thirty Years' War in 1648. We just agree to disagree; we live and let live; we move on.
I have found that in recent discussions with serious, hard-core Democrats and leftists, there is an increasing ease of conversation, partly because both sides seem prepared to use the religious model -- you believe what you believe, I believe what I believe, and neither of us tries too hard to dissuade the other.
That does not mean every set of beliefs is equally valid or useful. But it does mean we might yet salvage social cohesion from the divisive morass of politics.
The story of Noah is familiar; the details, less so.
Noah is often seen as an ambivalent figure. He was righteous -- but only for his generation. What was his deficiency?
One answer suggests itself: knowing that the world was about to be flooded, he built an Ark for the animals and for his own family -- but did not try to save anyone else or to convince them to repent and change their ways (the prophet Jonah, later, would share that reluctance).
Abraham, later, would set himself apart by arguing with God -- with the Lord Himself! -- against the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, saying that they should be saved if there were enough righteous people to be found (there were not).
Still, Noah was good enough -- and sometimes, that really is sufficient to save the world. We don't need heroes every time -- just ordinary decency.
Hi all -- as I noted last month, I'm going to be closing down my Locals page, at least for tips and subscriptions -- I may keep the page up and the posts as well, but I'm no longer going to be accepting any kind of payment.
Look for cancelation in the very near future. Thank you for your support!
An interesting weekend -- one of the last of Daylight Savings Time -- in which there is much to celebrate, much to contemplate, and a bit to worry about.
The Gaza peace deal is shaky, but holding, after the living hostages returned; the shutdown is still going on, with no end in sight; the China trade war is heating up; and the confrontation with Venezuela continues to escalate.
The "No Kings" protest was a dud, despite the media's attempt to inflate it. What I find fascinating is that the Democrats have basically stolen the rhetoric and the imagery of the Tea Party protests, circa 2009. They claim they are defending the Constitution -- just like the Tea Party did.
On the one hand, this is good. How wonderful to have a political system in which both sides, bitterly opposed though they are, articulate differences through the Constitution -- and not, as in so many other countries, outside it.
On the other, this is sheer hypocrisy for the Democrats. Not only did they malign the Tea Party as ...
