Jenny Brown wrote:
>
> Wendy Lyon wrote:
>
Look, I'm an atheist and I'd like to see the Catholic
> Church reparation-taxed out of existence, say, yesterday. But I think
> using religion as an explanation stops thought on a whole series of
> questions that could use a closer look. Yes, some people do what their
> church says, but plenty don't. Isn't that the more interesting question?
There is a rough analogy between this debate and the debate of "nurture vs nature." As Miles continually has to point out, a gene is always expressed in a physical and social context. So are abstract beliefs, such as religious beliefs. (And this is independent of whether one accepts or rejects the 'truth' of religious dogma.) There is no _direct_ link between the belief "God hates abortion" and the belief "Abortion shouldbe prohibited." Moreover, there is no direct and simple link between the belief, "Abortion should be prohibited" and voting for a politician who will vote for prohibiting abortion. The politician in question might have an attractive first name, which can overcome disagreement with his support of abortion! Or 4even though the newspapers might be full of a politician's support of abortion, any given abortion "opponent" may have not noticed the reports and vote for her anyhow because she is against raising the gasoline tax. Who knows. I remember a poll during the Army-McCarthy hearings indicating that one-third of the voters in Iowa had never heard of McCarthy!
One simply can't argue about concrete political activity in terms of abstract belief systems. They count, but it is a=never easy to detgermine how they count. If some day one million people hold an illegal parade down Fifth AVenue, and the Army Division called in refuses to shoot at them, and the president in Washington as a result gets on a plane and flees to Lisbon, be sure that at least 10,000 of those marchers are bitterly opposed to socialism in the abstract but for any of 1000 random reasons decided to join the insurrection. And be sure that at least a thousand or two of that 10,000 will within a year or two be one of the most vigorous radicals in the local councils.
Carrol