A glitch took my book off Amazon’s availability list last night. Sorry for the inconvenience. But they’ve more than made up for it: the discount is now 40 percent off the retail price. Get the book to close to half the regular price. Here’s the link. Buy now – while the offer lasts. It’ll cost you a mere $15.57, compared to the retail price of $25.95.
A reader complains:
What a nice Glenn Reynolds you pull as you approvingly post a message from a reader stating that "Real atheists lack the humility to understand what they don’t understand." After all, isn’t Glenn Reynolds the best example of linking to a post, and then claiming you don’t support it?
You don’t tolerate mindless and derogatory comments about most, so why do so about atheists? Do you honestly believe that "real atheists lack humility…?" This humanist atheist is a scientist quite comfortable and humble knowing that I don’t understand most of existence. And yet, I have no problems seeing the universe in its sublime beauty – awe, devotion, and worship are possible, even without a god. The universe is too grandiose for any other reaction.
Yes, this atheist worships. The word’s etymology is, basically, "to ascribe worth." I do that every moment I become aware of my breathing – awe, devotion, and worship and complete amazement as to how it all fits together. It simply is. And I believe there is no god, as well.
So stop it with the supportive post of an attack on atheists.
My only support for the post was by saying that I sense more understanding of the need for doubt and humility among evangelicals. I run plenty of emails with which I don’t fully agree. That’s the point.
And this atheist reader has a point. Take Sam Harris. "The End of Faith" is not an arrogant or dismissive book as a whole (although he has his moments). It ends with some quite remarkable thoughts about mystery and meditation. Harris is very attracted to Buddhism and has spent long periods in spiritual retreats. I’m a believer; but I profoundly respect non-believers, and even the spiritual experience of atheists. One of my most cherished writers is Albert Camus. In "The Plague" and in his notebooks, Camus shows how a man resigned to the non-existence of God can still love the earth and the universe, can relish its surprises and pleasures, and – more importantly – do good. Morality is not the exclusive preserve of the religious, and never has been. But Camus’ treatment of Father Paneloux in the book is also full of the generosity that Camus had for true Christians. That mutual respect between believer and non-believer is critical. We need more of it.
Cable is fickle. Larry King bumped Arianna, me at al tonight in favor of the plane crash in NYC. Colbert bumped me onto tomorrow’s show – for a very good reason. (If you read this in time, don’t miss tonight’s Colbert Report, which has a surprise mega-guest.) The Larry King round-table is scheduled for tomorrow night instead. Sorry for the confusion. I just found out myself. The looming book-signings are at Barnes and Noble at 82d Street and Broadway tomorrow night at 7 pm, and at Politics and Prose in DC (5015 Connecticut Avenue), at 6 pm this coming Saturday. I’ll be having a debate/conversation with Bill Moyers at the Bushnell Theatre in Hartford, Connecticut, Friday night at 8 pm, as part of the Connecticut Forum series. I’m also going to be on Jack Cafferty’s CNN show tomorrow afternoon, unless news happens. Which it often does. It’s always great to meet readers of the blog, so maybe I’ll see some of you on the road. More updates as the tour trundles along.
Jerusalem, Israel, 5.30 pm.
A reader writes:
Your reader writes:
"A strong, guiding faith – rather than a blind, unquestioning one – is something I appreciate and even envy, and for those of you who can reconcile reason with religion, I say more power to you."
This does not strike me as a person who could really be considered an atheist. Real atheists lack the humility to understand what they don’t understand (see Sam Harris). So he/she appears more agnostic, perhaps. Clearly there is a spark of curiosity there, if not longing for something more sublime.
And that leads to the real and most important point, especially for those who think all religious souls are mindless followers: faith is not faith unless doubt exists. Light does not exist without the dark, positive without negative, yes without no. They are in relation to one another, necessary for each other. Fundamentalist certainty is something, but it isn’t faith. And so doubt is essential to the true religious journey. And a journey it is. Doubt demands more information, more study, more reflection, more humility.
This dovetails nicely, I think, with your position on conservatism. And it may also explain the apparent synergy between both that makes conservatism as was formerly practiced, mostly in the GOP, so attractive to people of faith. The religious right hasn’t so much hijacked the GOP as much as the religious right has been hijacked by the religious rightists. And I think this is coming to an end very soon. Most Catholics, for example, found allies with the evangelicals over abortion. And also over the disintegration of the family and ongoing coarsening of our culture. But most now are finding that the differences in how one influences policy versus controlling policy is driving them apart. Even more hopefully, I see evidence that it is also subdividing the evangelicals as well as they begin to find their own faith damaged by the corrupting influences of the political process. I see reason for hope.
Me too. I was on the Michael Medved show yesterday and all the callers seemed to agree with me.
It is now and always has been the allegation that gays are all potential pedophiles or threats to minors. This kind of smear was once attributed to other despised minorities, esepcially Jews, and their alleged threat to Christian children. Over the last week, because of the gross behavior of Mark Foley, the Christianist right has resurrected this canard as a way of arguing that gay men should have no role in public life, and certainly not in the Republican party. Here’s a serious and scholarly refutation of the libel by Mark Pietrzyk, an expose on how scientific data has been abused by the Christianist right. Money quote:
[T]he very scientists that are cited in support of the contention that gays are more likely to be molesters explicitly reject the idea that homosexuals pose a disproportionate threat to children. These scientists note that pedophilia is a separate orientation from homosexuality and that the vast majority of molesters who target boys have either no interest in mature males or are heterosexual men who are attracted to the feminine characteristics of pre-pubescent males.
As for the ‘slippery slope’ argument, the biggest mistake many social conservatives make is to assume that the contemporary taboo against sexual relations with children is a longstanding part of the Judeo-Christian tradition, which is only now coming under assault by the left. In fact, the Judeo-Christian tradition and many other religious traditions tolerated and even affirmed pedophilic relationships for centuries. The contemporary taboo against such relationships developed only a little over one hundred years ago, as people became more enlightened about the potentially damaging aspects of sexual relations between persons of unequal maturity and power.
Yes, they still exist. It’s just a shame there are so few of them.
Ross Douthat and Damon Linker are having a spirited debate at The New Republic. Linker’s book on the radical ambitions of the theocons is extremely good. He once worked for and with them – until he saw the full consequences of their theological politics for a diverse, modern society. Now, like so many, he’s fighting back – for faith unsullied by partisan politics and for a politics that can actually address social issues with reason, rather than theology.
The U.S. Congress has approved this president’s extraordinary powers to detain any one at will, without charges, keep them indefinitely, and torture them if the president wants to. Some have argued that this can only happen to non-citizens. That is untrue. Glenn Greenwald has new and important data on what was done to Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen and terror suspect, captured by the government, detained for almost three years in isolation with ever being formally charged, and, of course, tortured on the president’s orders. Money quote from his lawyer’s brief:
Mr. Padilla was often put in stress positions for hours at a time. He would be shackled and manacled, with a belly chain, for hours in his cell. Noxious fumes would be introduced to his room causing his eyes and nose to run. The temperature of his cell would be manipulated, making his cell extremely cold for long stretches of time. Mr. Padilla was denied even the smallest, and most personal shreds of human dignity by being deprived of showering for weeks at a time, yet having to endure forced grooming at the whim of his captors…
He was threatened with being cut with a knife and having alcohol poured on the wounds. He was also threatened with imminent execution. He was hooded and forced to stand in stress positions for long durations of time. He was forced to endure exceedingly long interrogation sessions, without adequate sleep, wherein he would be confronted with false information, scenarios, and documents to further disorient him. Often he had to endure multiple interrogators who would scream, shake, and otherwise assault Mr. Padilla.
Additionally, Mr. Padilla was given drugs against his will, believed to be some form of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) or phencyclidine (PCP), to act as a sort of truth serum during his interrogations.
We live in a country where one man – the president – now has the power to detain any one at will, without being charged for years at a time, and tortured. This isn’t an emergency provision, to be revoked when a conflict ends. Since this war has no fixed enemy and no fixed end, it is now our permanent reality. America as we have known it, is over. Al Qaeda never had the power to do this damage to constitutional liberties. We did it to ourselves.
The latest on Foley’s cruising the dorms in the evening from Brian Ross. Then there’s this:
The former page, who spoke to ABC News on the condition he not be identified, said he then began receiving instant messages and e-mails from Foley which became sexually explicit immediately following his 18th birthday.
He said he has not retained any of the messages or e-mails.
"I would turn on my instant messenger, and he would be online at all hours of the day or night. The talk would quickly turn sexual," he said. He says Foley requested that he send photos of himself performing sexual acts.
A source who was a page back in the mid 1990s also recounted to me Foley’s well-known cruising of pages almost from the day he got to Congress. One conversation had the congressman talking about the size of his own private parts within minutes of meeting a 17-year-old page. If the House leadership didn’t know about any of this, then they should have known. This guy was given almost free rein for a decade.
The Dish 