Liberalism
For some people liberalism has nothing to be said for it This seems to be true in matters of both religion and politics. I often wonder why this should be so because we virtually all of us claim to value freedom, which is exactly what liberalism is about – being liberated.
I have no wish to write about party politics, though it’s not possible totally to separate politics from religion, for both are concerned with what we do about what we believe.
There is of course a kind of liberalism which right thinking people should surely abhor; I mean the belief that I should be allowed to do whatever I want to do. That would be OK if we were not frail, misguided, sinful beings. It is only in heaven that that kind of liberalism would make sense because in the heavenly state we would always want precisely what God wants. In the here and now we keep finding that one person’s wants will conflict with those of other people. This is true at the personal level and more disastrously so when we look at international relations.
The problem with people and groups who are opposed to what we might call rational liberalism is that whereas such liberals know they can be mistaken, their opponents are certain that they themselves are always right. Within the Christian Church there are great numbers of such misguided people, whose typical position is :”I believe this because the Pope says I should” or :”I believe this because the Bible says I should”. Yet I know many devout Catholics who would disagree with the first statement and many lovers of the Bible who would disagree with the second. All rational people accept that popes have erred and all rational people must surely be aware that the Bible needs a lot of interpretation.
The older I get the less certain I become of things which I once thought important truths. At the same time I become ever more convinced that Jesus gives us the best possible picture of the invisible God and that God is love and, as the marriage service puts it: “Those who live in love live in God and God lives in them”.
-Peter Graham
SOme good thoughts here…
> exactly what liberalism is
> about – being liberated.
If only! Liberalism is all about constraining people nowadays. Telling them what language to use and what they can do with their money… Or what 3rd parties can do with it.
Religious devotion causes a tiny, tiny fraction of the conservative resistance to modern liberal politics.
He’s talking about liberal theology versus conservative, but while we’re on the subject…
When was the last time a liberal kept you from saying something you wanted to say?
> liberal theology versus conservative
I herewith issue a Full Litella. (That’s an SNL thing. You may be too young)
Us Godless types tend to view religious squabbles as nunna-ar beeswax. But one of the best things about religion (for all of us) is that it constrains people’s behavior.
> When was the last time…
Well, there was no gunplay, but last time I mentioned voting for Bush in ‘04 there was an oppressive silence. Does that count?
And while I’m here… This is a blog-ops question, not a criticism or political comment of any kind. It’s just to get a sense of the state of the art.
Aside from this commetn stack, your blog has a forum in which recent comments always show at the top, no matter how old the first comment was, right? Why isn’t that sort of the standard way of doing business for all comment systems on the web?
Fifteen years ago, BBS’s seemed to have evolved ways of dealing with this stuff. Either that or we users were more fanatic about how to get at the stuff of interest.
Sorta, but not quite.
Blog comments get added at the bottom, same as with most blogs.
The message board, however, is different. Active topics stay at the top in each category.
the arguments that I see online in the USA are travesties of both true Liberal and Conservative positions. – Mainly because both “sides” in the political arena tend towards trying to impress with how extreme they can be – in order to get noticed. Then the younger generation always want to shortcut things and refer to their own private arguments – no true worldly perspective as a result.
my old man concentrates on the godly side – but he’s really talking about the same politics as we all do over here, in the only way he can for that village magazine.
One of the great myths I see the vocal right putting about is the “enforcement of political correctness” by liberals – actually it is only ever the challenging of nastiness in my experience.
Well, whether or not we should ban ‘nastiness’ and what defines ‘nastiness’ is rather the question, isn’t it?
Interesting points made by Pat — but I don’t think in general that the left is as extreme as the right when it comes to vocal positions. There isn’t really any “name” pundit on the left who says right-wingers should all be thrown in jail and/or executed, or calls them “fags” the way Ann Coulter does. You can dig up obscure professors like Ward Churchill, but few take him seriously, and in any case he got fired.
As for PC, it is overstated for sure, but I will say that it cost my father a university job back in ‘89. At that time, though, it was a weird alliance of prudish feminists and prim righty Christians who pretty much agreed on hypersensitive notions of “sexism.”
if they are into banning then they are not truly liberal- that’s failry simple
so to talk about my comment about ‘challenging’ nastiness and take it to ‘banning’ – that’s a non liberal thought process typically shown by those who have a basic right wing position.