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Old 12-15-2006, 02:40 PM
DVaut1 DVaut1 is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Ann Arbor, MI
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Default Re: Secular conservatives are CHEAP

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In general, liberals look to the state to solve problems. Conservatives, most of whom are religious, look to God for answers.

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This is ridiculous -- almost as ridiculous as "liberals worship liberalism, the state is God for them".

I have a leak in my late stage SnG game. I got into an argument with my wife last night. I can't get my hands on a Wii.

Here are three problems that a liberal like me (and I'd suggest I'm pretty representative of other liberals in this regard) doesn't bother going to the state with. Adding the caveat "in general" doesn't excuse crude meaningless nonsense and turn it into something less vapid. Yeah, I get what you're trying to say, but it's just nonsense. "Liberals worship liberalism" is just some meaningless tautology, and "liberals look to the state to solve problems" is just some gross overgeneralization that doesn't have any resembalance to the empirical reality.

What you mean to say is "liberals look to the state to solve *some* problems", which might sound like an impressive realization, until we consider that conservatives also look to the state to solve *some* problems, which means we're left with the obvious: some people look to the state to solve problems.


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You see no correlation between the secularization of Europe and the massive, core belief of most of its populace that the government will take care of everything? Did people feel that way when religion was predominant?


I think there's a connection there (obviously not true in every case).

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You've got the correlation backwards, or at the very least are confusing the correlates.

http://www.acton.org/publicat/m_and_...hp?article=54:

"The varied decline and persistence of religion in the world today is most strongly correlated with differing levels of “existential security.” Essentially, religion persists where people bear high levels of risk due to inequality, poverty, and inadequate social provision by the state. Conversely, more equal, less impoverished societies, especially those with comprehensive welfare provisions, have become increasingly secular by every relevant measure. The authors’ complex regression analyses show these correlations to be very robust across more than seventy countries."

So the correlation is: prosperous people support and enact welfare states --> welfare states provide existential security for most of its populace --> most of populace becomes secular because they no longer lack existential security.
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