Who Would Jesus Vote For?
Over at the Chronicle of Higher Education, rant replaces reason yet again. Randall Balmer, in "Jesus Is Not a Republican," hides behind his religion to make intellecutally dishonest attacks on politics he disagrees with (in this case, conservative--last week Ann Coulter did the same against liberals).
I was going to fisk his piece, but it turns out Rick Garnett has already discussed it at Mirror Of Justice. Perhaps not in great detail, but he gets the basics right.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:22 AM
2 Comments:
Politics is bad enough. When people start openly mixing their religion in with it, it can get real ugly. I mean how am I supposed to respond when a guy says he's voting some way because the Bible tells him to? Does he think that's a convincing argument?
In answer to Anonymous' last question: the answer is that he thinks it is a convincing argument to others who try to act based on what the Bible says. If you are not such a person, he isn't addressing you.
More generally, if someone makes any argument from authority ("I vote the way the Bible tells me", "I vote the way my parents taught me," etc.) you have three logical choices: choose not to argue, contest the value of the authority, or contest his interpretation of the authority.
With regard to the actual substance of his argument: I think that his straw man -- "the religious right" and even "the minions of the religious right" -- is necessary to the logic of his argument. I know many individuals, organizations, and church bodies that support much of what the "religious right" supports but which oppose the Bush administration's position regarding torture. Yet Balmer surveyed "eight religious-right organizations", two of which defended Bush's policy and six of which were too busy to write him back. He concludes that "the religious right" supports torture.
I think Ann Coulter is at least as logical as this guy.
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