When confronted with right wing social conservatism, the left usually adopts one of two strategies. On the one hand, it can argue for tolerance of differing viewpoints, but this argument is only persuasive for those who themselves are not so certain of what they believe as to legislate it. In other words, the tolerance argument only works for people who were already susceptible to accept social progressivism. Alternatively, the left sometimes approaches this problem by rejecting the existence of god so as to undermine the foundation of the conservative belief system, but in order for social conservatives to exist in the first place, their level of confidence in their belief in a god must be very high. These arguments, in many cases, are doomed to fail. So what else can the left argue? Well perhaps the left can seek common ground with the right by accepting, for the purposes of argument, the existence of god.
Tag: Religion
France Goes to War
French President François Hollande has decided that France is going into Mali. The nation of Mali has, in the last year, descended into civil war. The war in Mali has received relatively little mainstream media coverage and many westerners are, to our collective shame, unaware of what has been going on there and the role their own governments have played in creating the war. Today I would like to examine the Malian Civil War, its causes, the present state of affairs, and the ethics of intervening in it.
Rape in India: Who is to Blame?
Recently, a girl in India was gang-raped and killed. The incident produced a nationwide dialogue about India’s rape culture and the causes thereof, some of which has spilled over into the wider global conversation about gender roles, feminism, and so on. The blame has been directed a number of different ways with most of the arguments being impassioned, emotional, and defensive. I would like to cut away the passionate recriminations and attempt to come to a reasonable conclusion as to what the source of rape is and how states might go about combating it.
9/11, Chris Stevens, and Proportionate Response
Late last night in Benghazi, US ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens was killed by a mob angered by a film called Innocence of Muslims, promoted by the famous American pastor Terry Jones, notorious for his burning of the Quran, the Muslim holy book. The film mocks Islam and Muhammad. Having viewed the trailer, it is clear that the film is not only quite intellectually vacuous, but the acting and production values are all very poor. It is the sort of piece that reflects more poorly on its creators than it does on those it cricitises. Yet, for all this, an embassy was stormed and an American ambassador killed, and on the anniversary of the September 11th attacks, of all days. There is a lesson in all of this–proportionality. That is today’s topic.
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Bill Nye the Anti-Creationism Guy
A few days ago, before it went viral, I happened upon this video from Bill Nye (of Bill Nye the Science Guy) commenting on creationism:
The video certainly struck me as interesting, but not particularly controversial. Big Think, the YouTube channel that put out the video, frequently posts intellectually engaging videos that encourage viewers to reassess their ideas or consider new ones, and videos like this one are what I’ve come to expect from them as a subscriber. However, a few days later I discovered that it had attained over a million views, and as I check today the count is over three million. I’d like to discuss Nye’s comments and why they seem to have struck a nerve, for good or for bad, with so many people.
Benjamin Studebaker 