People have been dancing around the faith/reason duality for more than 2000 years. Aristotle worked out the rules of logic around 350 BCE, and Thomas Aquinas assumed the task of using them to prove the existence of God in the 13th Century CE. Descartes came along a couple of hundred years later, and made some improvements on all this, but we’re still left with very little.
As I told my nephew once when he was assigned a college paper on this, “You can’t have your metaphysical cake and eat it too. You either believe in things for which there is evidence, or you don’t.”
Moreover, as shown at left, faith runs headlong into logical inconsistencies.
Remarkably, there are still people on this Earth who agree with Mr. Hayek. It appeared that their numbers were thinning out, until Donald Trump came along and gave straight white Christian men permission to be the most disgusting people imaginable.
Social justice brought us the end of the divine right of kings and slavery; it brought us the Age of Reason and the incorporation of science into policymaking.
Even the most despicable Americans in the most backwater parts of the United States will face steep consequences if they lynch a black man, and don’t forget that lynching in the Deep South was as popular as baseball only 100 years ago.
One of the key features of Trumpism is that facts don’t matter–and this includes facts that members of the MAGA base experience every time they go to the grocery store or fill up their gas tank.
If Trump or one of his minions says it, it must be true, regardless of how blatantly false it is.
Here, Samuel L. Jackson provides a fresh insight into today’s Republican party. It’s the polar opposite of the idea we all learned as children: live and let live.
People who aren’t straight white Christian males are the enemy.
-
Climate Change12 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases12 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Bill Discounting Climate Change in Florida’s Energy Policy Awaits DeSantis’ Approval
-
Renewable Energy10 months agoSending Progressive Philanthropist George Soros to Prison?
-
Greenhouse Gases1 year ago
嘉宾来稿：探究火山喷发如何影响气候预测
-
Carbon Footprint2 years agoUS SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules Spur Renewed Interest in Carbon Credits