Late Night Book TV

Stayed up late last night and watched Sam Harris (End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation), Reza Azlan ( No God But God ) and Jonathan Kirsch ( History of the End of the World )
debate on "Religion and Reason" on Book TV CSPAN-2. I ought to have Tivoed it, but it was kind of fun to stay up late for a change on a cold night. I discovered while I was watching that Chris Hedges was going to be on discussing his new book "American Fascists" about the scourge of the "Christian Right" in the US.

So we had a VERY liberal Muslim and a Jew discussing with the guy that wrote "Letter to a Christian Nation" for an hour and 1/2. They were all agreed that ANYONE that believed in the virgin birth, resurrection from the dead, diety of Christ would be "scary and out there" ... but of course according to Azlan and Kirsch, nobody sane DOES believe in that anymore. Religion is a "sophisticated social thing" ... it changes all the time, doesn't really have any fixed morals, so they were able to dispose of Harris pretty well. It had me almost pulling or Harris. I guess the conclusion would have been that at least a religion that isn't really a religion is "reasonable".

None of these folks seem to want to consider what I consider the fundamental question; "Is there a God beyond materialism that wants to be connected with us?". While I was watching, I was reloading my brain on the Knuth "Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About" book. Interesting that Donald Knuth is clearly one of those "unreasonable people" that is a practicing Lutheran. Guy Steele, a Fellow at Sun Micro Systems takes part in a panel and sounds quite Christian as well. A REAL discussion would be about the issue of REAL religion, the kind that changes lives and saves souls being "reasonable". At one level, the answer is "of course not". Is love "reasonable"? Beauty? Consciousness? Can human beings transcend their material existence? Harris along with Dawkins would argue "NO, and the price of keeping love, hope, faith, etc is "too high"" ... we "reasonable people" have to throw those items out and worship the material universe only.

Then Chris Hedges got going. I suppose I have to read what sounds like a hate-filled tome that he has written at some point. The bottom line is that one takes the results of massive rates of divorce, promiscuity, abortion on demand, drug use, and lives wrecked by the hoplessness of of the Godless culture, and "blame it on a Republican plot". Then use the "What's the Matter With Kansas" logic to say that the Republicans have "created the "religious right" and moved all those poor folks that they "disenfranchised" into a "magic world outside of reality with virgin birth, 6-day creation and Noah's Ark" on the way to making them "Brownshirts". According to Hedges we are "one more 9-11 short of a facist takeover".

Throw in a bit more conspiracy theory and some "parallels" with Nazi Germany, and you have a "clear and present danger" ... again, it sounds like he doesn't say what REALLY has to be done, but when one is faced with the immenent takeover by "Brownshirts", one would think that almost anything would be justified. In the bookstore discussion, nobody talked for the other side. Could it ever be possible have someone calling people "Fascists and Brownshirts" "hate speech"? Of course not ... I really don't believe in labeling speech like that on EITHER side, but note how unlikely such a thing is when applied to Christians.