May 30, 2017--A Word About Intelligent Design

There is a hot debate underway among progressives and others who do not in any way support Donald Trump about how to relate, if at all, to those who voted for and are sticking by President Trump.

The fact that I have difficulty referring to him as "President," is indicative of how complicated this situation is. About as complicated as how Republicans in the main had difficulty thinking about Barack Obama as "President" and opposed him aggressively, seeking from Inauguration Day to bring him down.

So Democrats and Republicans share that.

I have been arguing here for some time that, while opposing most of Trump's initiatives, progressives need to reach out to the most independent-minded of Trump supporters in an attempt to convince them that we understand their frustration and anger and make the case to them that traditional Democrats share many of their concerns and would like to welcome them back to our enlarged tent. Even including abortion opponents and Second Amendment defenders.

Others argue that we shouldn't waste our time reaching out to them. They are so unredeemable from a progressive perspective that we should not engage with them.

Yesterday, guest-blogger Sharon made that case forcefully--

If I have given up trying to reason with and understand people I already know who perhaps have spent too many years being brainwashed by Fox News, trolls and "news" outlets even further right, I have even less interest engaging strangers who want people to be free not to have health care.  I hold in special contempt those who encourage conspiracy theories that spur the lunatic fringe to shoot up pizza parlors, etc.

I respect this, understand, but disagree. I feel we have to do the opposite--no matter how difficult or infuriating, we need to seek opportunities to talk about our differences to see if there is any possibility of finding some common ground. 

In that spirit, Rona and I have been talking about how to have these difficult dialogues. Unlike our life in New York City where, politically, pretty much everyone we know has nothing but contempt for Trump and his supporters, we are fortunate up in Maine to know people with a wide range of views, including some who are eager to talk across the divide.

Thus, we have been searching for issues, topics around which to organize potential discussions. We even made a list. The first few topics are not good places to begin since about them there is little or no possibility for compromise. For example, abortion. If to opponents it is murder and for supporters it's a woman's right, there is not much to talk about. There is nothing to negotiate.

Here are some of the topics--

Abortion
The Second Amendment
Immigration
Healthcare
Same-sex marriage
Prayer in school
Taxes
The deficit
Government regulations
Iran
Russia
Climate change
Contraception
Food stamps
Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
Evolution/Intelligent Design

We have had considerable success talking about SSI. A number of conservative friends expressed vehement opposition to it, claiming that almost everyone receiving benefits is perpetrating a fraud, lying about their circumstances, and thus should be denied ongoing assistance  To complexify matters and to see if there might be some room for give, I looked up who actually receives SSI benefits and found that 33 percent of the 8 million are children or elderly and 15 percent more are significantly disabled and incapable of working. When discussing these recipients in turn, all on the far right agreed it was important to continue to help these people. To many of them it was the Christian way.

I then said, "So we agree about nearly 50 percent. That's progress, and of course it's OK to disagree about the rest."

With this in mind, Rona suggested that maybe we should move on to talk about Evolution. Many who are deeply conservative and often evangelicals who believe the Bible is the literal truth do not want to see it taught in public schools. They either call for its outright ban or, at a minimum, that it be taught alongside the theory of Intelligent Design (ID).

"Where's the give with this?" I asked, quite skeptical.

"There is overwhelming scientific evidence to support Evolution," Rona said, "But, hear me out, no valid scientific evidence that discredits Intelligent Design."

"What?"

"That's right. Tell me how you know, how we know that there was not some force of nature, or something more divine that guided the evolutionary process? Therefore, why not concede that it's worth putting this out for discussion? Doesn't a good education include teaching the history of controversies? Like Evolution and ID?" 

"Interesting point. Maybe this is like same-sex marriage. Twenty years ago only a small minority favored it but in more recent years it received overwhelming support, so much so that the Supreme Court stretched to find it to be constitutional."

"Bottom line," Rona said, "As difficult as it is and how unpleasant it can be, if we want to have a more inclusive and civil country, we need to not give up on having these kinds of conversations."

"I agree," I said, "But I do understand why others might come to a different conclusion."

"I'll predict that we could also have productive conversations about climate change and . . ."

I cut her off, "Let's take this one step at a time. I'm already feeling exhausted."

January 5, 2017--Belief Systems

Here is one more example of the problem progressives have connecting with large swaths of the American electorate--we still think that when times are scary, to quote candidate Obama in 2008, "average" people get "bitter" and "cling to guns or religion."

When I ran this thought by a lifelong friend, who is intelligent and prides herself on being liberal and open-minded, she said, "That's the problem with Republicans--they don't believe in evidence or in facts or, more generally, science. Most of them come at everything from a religious perspective."

"And you don't?" I asked.

"You know, I'm an atheist. Anything that smacks of religion, where you have to believe and not think, I'm against."

"Except the certainty that is a part of being an atheist? The certainty that there is no God, no divine force?"

"Show me the evidence for that and I'll change my mind and believe that there is."

"I'm sort of an atheist myself," I said, "But when I look at the wonder of the complexity and efficiency of my hand or at a flower blossom or a sunset, I'm more persuadable that there might be, might be, some sort of intelligence behind that."

"I can't believe you're saying this. I know you're getting old. The next thing I'll hear is that you've become religious!"

We both laughed at that.

"But you have things that you believe in," I said. "You have belief systems that guide you."

"Not religious ones."

"Let me give you an example," she seemed interested in this, "What's so different about believing in an ideology and a body of religious beliefs?"

"Like if I was a socialist, or something?"

"Great example. You came from a family of communists and you're at least half a socialist. Didn't you send money to and vote for Bernie?"

"I did, but . . ."

"But nothing because full-blown socialism (and Bernie's not that) is a belief system that is not much more empirical or fact-based than being a Presbyterian."

"You'll have to give me more examples," my friend said, sitting back with her arms folded skeptically across her chest.

"A big part of socialism calls for economic fairness and even equality."

"And?"

"How much of that is fact-based and not derived from beliefs that you have? Beliefs that are not objectively verifiable?"

"Well, there's natural law."

"It's not a law in the same way that there are laws in physics that are measurable and quantifiable. Newton's laws of motion or gravity, for example, which are very different than natural law, which is purely a human construct derived from beliefs, not science."

I could see that my friend was giving all this some thought.

"So in your political ideology, which includes a strong belief in social justice, as another example, you have a powerful, not a fact-based belief system that guides your thinking and much of your behavior. Which is fine. I don't have a problem with that, just that I hope you'd fess up to the fact that you are not so different in this than Christian Evangelicals, who you are traditionally quick to dismiss as superstitious and anti-intellectual."

"I'm open to hearing more," she said.

"Does that natural law you mention refer just to laws of nature that you believe are naturally there to guide humans or do they also pertain to the rest of the natural world? I ask because I don't see too many systems out there of natural law leading to cooperation and generosity. There are a few examples in the animal kingdom, among whales, for example, but they do not seem to be widespread. Thus, perhaps for the sake of human survival, we derive laws either from nature or we make them up to keep us from killings each other. We need a lot of 'Thou Shalt Not's. Human's by nature can be pretty predatory. We can be self-sacrificing too--even give up or lives for others--but in the human realm, nature feels quite 'red in tooth and claw.'"

"Where are you going with this?" my friend asked, seemingly beginning to get tired of me.

"Just to remind us not to be too disdainful, not allow ourselves to feel too superior to fellow citizens who are religious. Half the reason we lost the election is because our candidates couldn't figure out a way to connect with them. In fact, we did quite the opposite, feeling superior by looking down our noses at anyone born-again. Two-thirds of those who defined themselves as religious voted overwhelmingly for someone married three times who doesn't know anything about the Bible."

"You could be right," my friend said. "I know for one that I'm not that good at being tolerant toward religious people."

"Saying that, acknowledging that means you're at least halfway there. As liberals, doesn't our belief system--sorry about that--mean we're supposed to be open-minded, and tolerant?"

"It does. It also means, if you're right about any of this, if we want to be politically viable, that we'd better figure out how to get comfortable relating to, genuinely relating to people who cling to religion."

At that we both laughed.