RELIGION, THE WINGNUTS & THE WEST

Orcinus finds this revealing passage by Mark Noonan of Blogs For Bush:

There are two things which can stop this slide into barbarism and death: the conquest of the west by people who believe in something, or the revival of a west which has returned to its moral and intellectual roots. Those are the choices - be conquered by Moslems (who at least believe in something higher than themselves and their personal pleasures), or become Judeo-Christian. Death or conversion, take your pick.

This is of a piece with conservatives pandering to the Religious Right and their anti-scientific stance toward biology and science in general. Of course, others have seen a different Western heritage and drawn different conclusions. The great thinkers of the Enlightenment were especially taken with Lucretius (1st century B.C.) and Cicero (106-43 B.C.). Peter Gay's book, Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Paganism, informs us that:

No propagandist ever conducted the battle of science against religion more exuberantly than Lucretius. nor won if for science with such simple means. In all forms but one, he argues, religion is merely superstition based on ignorance and maintained by terror. Science, by contrast, is right reason offering a complete and coherent account of the universe. The one sensible religion, the Epicurean doctrine of the passionless gods dwelling in serene indifference in the heavens, does not interfere with true - that is, Epicurean - science. ( p.100)

Lucretius had a firmly non-religious view of both Man and gods¹:

2. The soul is made of exceedingly fine atoms and has two connected parts: the anima distributed throughout the body, which is the cause of sensation, and the animus in the breast, the central consciousness. The soul is born and grows with the body, and at death it is dissipated like “smoke.”

3. Though the gods exist, they neither made nor manipulate the world. As systems of exceedingly fine atoms, they live remote, unconcerned with human affairs, examples to men of the ideal life of perfect happiness (absence of mental fear, emotional turmoil, and bodily pain).

Nooan urges a return to what may be called the Southern Baptism of Falwell and Robertson, although it is unclear to me why he writes that "We've been energetically going away from these roots for more than a century and a half." That would be about 1850 and I am unaware of any significance of that year or nearby years.

¹ Lucretius. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved March 30, 2007, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://search.eb.com/eb/article-4354