Being wrong is good
I’m re-reading Who Are We: The Challenges to America’s National Identity now that I know a lot more American history than I did when I first read it in 2004. The book was probably written in the early 2000s, so it’s interesting to see what Samuel Huntington get’s wrong. In the early chapters he wishes […]
Fake fact: America is not secularizing
The whole post is at Gene Expression, but the chart to the left is the core of it. 1980-2008 can to a great extent be labelled a conservative era, when the New Right set the terms of the national debate on politics and culture. And yet concomitantly there was a massive secularization process, as 1 […]
Creationism in the Muslim world
A ScienceBlogs I have a post on Muslim Creationism data up. The paper, On being religious : patterns of religious commitment in muslim societies, has lots of information. You can download it at the link. Here are the topline results for evolution:
It isn’t a representative sample:
About 45% of American Muslims exhibit some level of belief […]
The rise of McChurch, but not Old Time Theology
Mr. Bradlaugh’s post on the death of intellectual Protestantism, the highbrow aspect of what we normally term “Mainline Protestantism,” prompts to revisit some data which I’ve reported before, but want to reiterate.
First, the old Protestant denominations which have dominated our culture and set the terms of the debate in terms of what it means to […]
Traditions and tribes; the genealogy of civilizations
A few weeks ago the socially conservative sociologist who blogs under the name “Inductivist” had an intriguing post up, Social conservatives and Muslims:
Social conservatives typically align themselves with the West against the Islamic world in the “clash of civilizations,” but it needs to be recognized that in some respects we have more in common with […]
Ross Douthat is back blogging
At The New York Times, Evaluations.
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Fake fact: Catholics care about abortion more than non-Catholics
Political punditry is rife with “fake facts.” Basically, empirical assertions which are false but assumed to be true. Perhaps the readership of political journalism is stupid. Perhaps the writers of political journalism are stupid. Perhaps both. No idea. So a new “series,” which I will label “fake fact,” facts assumed to be true by the […]
Creationism vs. Abortion, Left, Right, elites and the masses
As a follow up to the post below on Sarah Palin and Creationism, it strikes me that those on the Right & Republicans seem more divided and emotive on this issue than abortion. More specifically, libertarian and secular Rightists seem more likely to express their displeasure about Creationism than abortion. Why? A lot of it […]
Yes, Sarah Palin is a Creationist (not that there’s anything wrong with that)
Memoir Is Palin’s Payback to McCain Campaign:
Elsewhere in this volume, she talks about creationism, saying she “didn’t believe in the theory that human beings — thinking, loving beings — originated from fish that sprouted legs and crawled out of the sea” or from “monkeys who eventually swung down from the trees.” In everything that happens […]
The nation-state as idol
Rod Dreher & Daniel Larison discuss the intersection of religion and patriotism. The issue of course isn’t adherence to a higher law vs. the nation-state; even those without explicitly religious motivations can reject loyalty to a state whose actions they feel to be illegitimate. Rather, the bigger issue are multiple loyalties. Religion is an […]