“For without reservation. I can ‘solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution… so help me God.’” It was nearly 50 years ago when a presidential nominee from Massachusetts uttered those words, at the end of a speech meant to assuage the fears of many people that his religious views would dictate his decisions to the detriment of the country. It would seem that this was largely successful, because, on January 20th, 1961, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was sworn into one of the most powerful elected positions on the face of the earth. Little surprise, then, that when Willard “Mitt” Romney, another member of a religion with less than implicit public trust, decided that he wanted to run for that very same job, he chose to give a very similar speech. However, Romney would, mere months later, suspend his campaign and remove himself from the race. Why would Romney’s campaign fail where Kennedy’s succeeded? Where, in the text and the timing of his message, did Romney go wrong?
In little over two weeks, a new documentary named Expelled will be making its nationwide debut, detailing for the country how, as the film’s creators see it, “Big Science” is repressing proponents of Intelligent Design, a theory that credits an intelligent creator for the creation of life rather than the more tendentially atheistic theory of Darwinian evolution. Reviewers of the pre-screening for Expelled, both positive and negative, have made numerous comments about the film’s use of images of Nazi Germany in such a way as to represent the forces of “Big Science” and “Darwinists” as being similar to those that caused the Holocaust. As Ray Comfort’s glowing review points out, the maker of the film, “can see the same pattern in the United States that led up to Nazi Germany.” (Comfort) The conflict between Darwinian evolution, and the concept of an intelligent designer is one of many public fronts in the ongoing confrontation between theism and atheism, with theists supporting the supposition that supports their belief in a creative designer, and with atheists supporting the theory that attempts to explain the origin of life without the need for such a supposition. It is not unusual, in this conflict, for this comparison between atheism and Nazism to be raised as it is in the film, with footage cutting between notable atheist Richard Dawkins, and Nazi troops marching in formation. This implicit parallel between atheism and Nazism, however, is just the tip of the rhetorical iceberg.
I just have to point out this little bit of amusing trivia. At the recent Youtube/CN Republican debates, there was a question regarding the don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy, and while there has been a small firestorm regarding some conspiracy involving the person who asked the question, I’m much more interested in one of the aspects of what the response was…
Time to get out your thinking caps and see if you can find the hole in this argument (it’s about 2:08 in):
"And the reason for that, even though people point to the Israelis, and point to the Brits, and point to other people as having homosexuals serve, is that most Americans, most kids who [...] go out and serve in the military, [...] most of them are conservatives. And they have conservative values. And they have Judeo-Christian values. And to force those people to work in a small tight unit with someone who is openly homosexual [...] is, I think, a disservice to them and I agree [...] that it would be bad for unit cohesion."
So, apparently, the reason why we’re so different from Britain (which has an established national church, which just happens to be a Christian denomination) and Israel (gee, wonder what religion they might be) is that we’ve got… you’ve guessed it. Judeo-Christian values. Do these people even bother looking up what these words mean anymore?
The song is from Roy Zimmerman’s album Faulty Intelligence, available on his own site and on iTunes. Whoever said that the title “guitar comic” was an oxymoron?
