"He complained about 'respect creep'"

Hot dog exploded. It's the "mindful eating" version — "if you have a lot of different savory and sweet things on the plate in small amounts, it seems like a lot of food but doesn't put on the pounds" — of the All-American classic. We cooked the dogs on high in the microwave for one minute, rolled 'em up in toast slathered with mayo, mustard and relish, and sliced them on the diagonal into bite-sized pieces. For Mem Day at Goomp's, were going to use good old-fashioned Wonder-Bread-type buns and grill 'em for doibs.

"He complained about 'respect creep,' saying that he’s willing to tolerate religious believers, but that doesn’t mean he’s obligated to treat their beliefs as anything other than nonsense," writes John Allen re Cambridge University atheist philosopher Simon Blackburn in the provocatively titled "Atheist scholar is ally (with reservations) in Benedict’s fight against relativism." Many thanks to our fellow B16 Fan Club member Jill for the link:

As for Blackburn, he regards religion as a delusion. He actually wrote a paper three years ago defending his refusal to put on a yarmulke when invited by a Jewish friend to Friday dinner, on the grounds that it would express a respect for religion he doesn’t feel [We couldn't disagree more, of course. When we attended a mass with Jill at St. Paul's in Cambridge a couple of months back, it was a wondrous thing to stand up with the celebrants and be blessed by the priest, albeit with hands crossed upon our chest to indicate we were not members of the congregation] …

Yet philosophy, a bit like politics, tends to make strange bedfellows. At least on the subject of truth, Benedict and many of the luminaries in Lugano ["a gathering of scientists, philosophers, and eggheads of all stripes, most of them without any specific religious conviction … taking up the papal challenge … for a new look at truth within the Western secular academy"] seem to have some common ground.

Blackburn offers an interesting case in point. In his book Truth, Blackburn acidly denounced “something diabolical in the religion of relativism, multiculturalism or postmodernism, something which corrodes and corrupts the universities and the public culture, that sweeps away moral standards, lays waste young people’s minds, and rots our precious civilization from within.”

It’s language that, in another context, easily might have flowed from the papal pen.

We've never met an atheist whose world view worked for us, even though we count ourselves among them. It seems that most of 'em substitute a secular faith for a religious one. Blackburn turns out to be a knee-jerk Bush Derangement Syndrome sufferer:

Now, of course, governments are extremely unlikely to acknowledge that there are limits to what you can do to people. [Do to people? Isn't that the left's stock in trade?] The United States threw that over in the last five years. I don’t think any government, or any religion for that matter, has an unblemished record of respecting the boundaries to what you may do to other people.

How sad that celebs like Blackburn don't realize their reflexive reiterations of the leftist party line reveal their secular religionist underpinnings. We are wired for belief, and one way or another, faith will out.

Update: Are we wired for craziness as well? Check out Dr. Sanity's Carnival of the Insanities for some possible answers.

Update II:  A "Weekend of Irony" for The Anchoress, who links and muses:

Boy, I’m starting to miss Hillary! And Bush. After seeing him sneak past the media filters for a few hours, and the effect of it, I’m missing him.

Ditto.

Update III: Maggie's links us and other items of note. Our favorite:

Don't be afraid of Iran's nukes - be afraid of John McCain!

As we said in the comments of Glenn and Helen's excellent interview of Robert Kagan at PJM's Politics Central,™ "Someone should leave a copy of [Kagan's new book] The Return of History and the End of Dreams on Obama's bedside table." Also available at Dr. Helen's.

Comments

[goomp]

People like Blackburn are so proud that they have become atheists that along with their belief in God they have discarded the thousands of years of human experience and wisdom that led to the great moral codes of the Judean-Christian world. Until the time I was in college in the days before World War II my belief in the Christian God was absolute. Like Blackburn what I learned changed my thinking. I no longer believe in a personal God and I have no explanation of why or how the Universe exists. I do feel that mankind's experience has led to knowing that codes of moral value are needed to live a civilized life and a look at the world today shows that the codes developed by Judaism and Christanity as adhered to in the 19th and most of the 20th centuries led to the development of Western Civilization which was until the birth of relativism, nihilism and multiculturism the most successful ever divised by man.

[Donna B.]

I rarely disagree with Sissy, and even more rarely with Goomp, but from the article alone, I certainly disagree that Blackburn has "discarded the thousands of years of human experience and wisdom that led to the great moral codes of the Judean-Christian world."

It sounded to me more like he was defending them, just not their religious basis. If not, it won't be the first time I've been wrong.

As for his snipe about the last five years in the U.S., it was sort of like "btw, I don't like Bush however irrelevant he may be to this discussion."

[Sissy Willis]

Donna -- I agree with you (phew!) . . . Blackburn seems to be with the pope on the great moral codes. I was objecting only to his gratuitous, reflexive dissing of the Pres. Probably a signal of species recognition to his fellow atheists?

[Donna B.]

I'm so relieved we've got that cleared up now :-)

[Jill]

I love that BDS is a "signal of species recognition".

I think that what Blackburn understands as a clear-thinking atheist is that without recognition of a transcendental lawgiver, one that gives us the natural law written on our hearts (as well the laws of physics, biology and mathematics), there is nothing except brute power.

We saw too much of that in the 20th century.

[Gayle Miller]

But about GWB - he is absolutely, positively WRONG. Thanks to the Anchoress, I read the entirety of the Knesset speech and it's wonderful. Yeah, yeah, I know - he has speechwriters. BUT they don't tell him what to think, he tells THEM what to write. That easily could be one of his greatest speeches.

Good heavens, we could easily find ourselves instead listening to the mindless, content absent blatherings of that huckster from Illinois - I guess if we survived James Earl Carter, Jr. we can survive Barack Hussein Obama - but do we need to learn our lesson that badly?

[discover lugano]

Discover Lugano is the first-of-its-kind online travel photo gallery dedicated to this part of the world. While striving to create a fun and informative online experience, is much more. It is also a feature-rich travel planning tool focused solely on the lakes, mountains, shops, nightlife, and dining spots found in this vibrant city with a small town feel. Discover Lugano users can map points of interest and add points of interest onto itineraries. They can even download and email finalized itineraries to themselves, friends and relatives. www.discoverlugano.ch