> I'd say the circumstantial evidence is strong that religious loonies
> are in complete charge of the country. Above all else, the election
> results represent adamant denial of reality -- belief that Iraq was
> responsible for 9/11, that Bush has alleviated rather than worsened
> the potential for terrorism, that the US can pile up endless external
> debt while telling other nations to go fuck themselves, etc., etc.
> That amount of fantasy is compatible only with a thoroughgoing
> religious worldview. Faith, as Mark Twain memorably observed, is
> believing what you know ain't so.
Oh, I don't know that it's compatible *only* with a religious worldview. My guess is that a lot, or even most, people in the Bush administration are as non-religious as a lot of their critics. One can get completely attached to secular beliefs, such as a belief in "free-market" economics and a belief in the efficacy of using overwhelming force to compel the whole world to submit to one country's leadership, as easily as one can on religious beliefs. It's not the nature of the beliefs that causes the trouble, it's the tenacity with which one holds them.
Conversely, one can have religious beliefs one is very doubtful about. E.g., a lot of Unitarians. Reminds me of one of my favorite jokes: "what do you get when you cross a Unitarian and a Jehovah's Witness? Someone who knocks on your door for no particular reason."
The American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce's essay, "The Fixation of Belief," is a good discussion of this. He points out that people tend to feel very uncomfortable when they don't immediately know what to believe about a subject, and therefore naturally look for some way of deciding which beliefs to fix on. He describes four commonly used fixation methods, the first of which is "the method of tenacity." This method involves simply pouncing on a belief that seems appealing and holding to it come hell or high water. He notes that the main advantage of this method is that it is simple and quick, and effectively ends the discomfort. On the other hand, the principal disadvantage, of course, is that one frequently chooses a belief that happens to be wrong, which can lead to a lot of trouble. I think the Bush folks will find this out after a while. Whether they are smart enough to try the method of empirical investigation, the fourth of Peirce's methods and the one he clearly prefers, is very doubtful.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org _____________________________ "Simply by being human we do not have a common bond. For all we share with all other humans is the same thing we share with all other animals -- the ability to feel pain." -- Richard Rorty