The Aeon website has had some good stuff, though I really don’t know much about it. Increasingly, however, it seems to be abjuring brain stuff for touchy-feely as well as defense-of-religion stuff. Here, for instance, is the list of current questions, posed by writers, for readers to discuss:
I presume the first question derives from the short article on the site, John Fea’s “The secular front in the US“, which is advertised on Aeon like this:
And its first sentence is not propitious:
Pay even passing attention to political society in the United States, and you will learn that secular progressives are threatening the country.
All students are required to sign a “Community Covenant” (see the whole thing at the link) swearing fealty to Jesus and promising good Christian behavior. One of its stipulations is that homosexuality is sinful and “destructive of community life and the body of Christ”:
Which brings us to Fea’s thesis. Why, exactly, is secularism threatening America and is such a “menace”? Well, take your pick:
Beginning in the 1970s, Christian conservatives complained that godless ideologues were exalting human reason, placing human beings above God, and worshipping unlimited freedom and individualism. They called them secular humanists.
Yes, Fea’s real argument—which, as a testimony to Jesus and a warning against anti-Jesus secularists surely doesn’t belong in the pages of a decent website—is that secularists attack all the values that evangelical Christians hold dear. And, as he admits, secularism is growing. But Fea also points out that Evangelicals are Numerous and Powerful, constituting more than 25% of Christians, and therefore “the largest religious sub-group in the country.” Fea’s beef is that Evangelicals don’t get no respect (pull at knot of your tie) given their population:
Yet for evangelicals, the secular progressive vision of the world is a threat to the institutions that they hold dear. They believe that progressives are threatening the biblical idea that God created men and women for the purpose of procreation and family life. Many evangelicals believe that human rights come from God, and thus the exercise of these rights – particularly in the area of sexuality and the protection of human life – must always be measured by the will of God as contained in the scriptures. Families who choose to have an abortion are putting their selfishness, disguised as the ‘pursuit of happiness’, over the dignity of a helpless human life. Secular progressives, who frequently brandish Ivy-league degrees, a sense of intellectual superiority, and contempt for Christian faith, often treat evangelicals like idiots. Granted, few politically minded members of the Christian Right try very hard to listen and learn from secular progressives. But the deafness and incivility go both ways.
What Fea apparently means by “civility” is not just that we should treat Evangelicals as if they have human dignity (I think most of us try to do that), but that they are forced themselves to act secular to get along in society—a bogus argument if I’ve ever heard it.
Evangelicals have managed to capture a large segment of the Republican Party, but in other areas of culture they are forced to conform to the norms of society as defined by secular progressives. Take, for example, the most elite universities in the US. The leadership and faculty, when taken as a whole, largely reject the truth claims of Christianity or, at the very least, do not see Christianity as a useful system of belief to help shape campus and intellectual life. Evangelical student groups have been asked to leave campus because of their views on a host of social issues. [JAC: While this may be true, I know of plenty of good colleges that have evangelical Christian student organizations. I’m not sure what Fea is referring to here.] Today, I would venture to guess, it is virtually impossible for a scholar who is pro-life, believes that marriage is between a man and a woman, or does not fully embrace a progressive view of human history, to land a teaching post at one of these universities. Evangelical faculty and graduate students, in order to make it, must learn to keep quiet about the way that faith informs their understanding of the world. This kind of compartmentalising is not always a bad thing, but it is a reality.
Well, I’ll leave the readers to let me know about their acquaintance with pro-life, anti-gay-marriage, and conservative professors at “elite” universities. I could name at least half a dozen if I thought about it for five minutes, but I’ll leave their names out of this argument. What Fea wants is “Jesus diversity” at elite colleges: we should, in other words, deliberately employ people with Evangelical views. But what if those views are irrelevant to their disciplines, and people are hired on merit in their fields? Since most academics are liberals, that will give us an underrepresentation of Evangelicals. But no nonreligious college discriminates against scholars based on those scholars’ religious beliefs (professors in divinity schools may be an exception). I suspect it’s illegal to even ask them about their religious beliefs during the hiring process. And woe be to the college who fires a scholar because they’re discovered to be an Evangelical Christian. That is a one-way trip to Lawsuit City.
And these Christians, once hired, are free to promulgate their views—and many of them do. What Fea doesn’t like is that their views aren’t popular, and so some Evangelicals keep silent. Well, that’s too damn bad. If they’re so cowardly that they can’t speak up about their beliefs, they belong in nursery school, not a university.
In the end, Fea thinks secularism is destroying our country because it leads to suppression and refusal to “respect” the views of evangelicals:
Whether it be academia, popular entertainment, or some other sector of culture, secular progressivism is a real threat to evangelical Christian values. Christian culture warriors are often sloppy and usually inconsistent in the way that they apply Christian faith to public life, but not all of them are crazy. They are astute observers of modern culture who represent the values and fears of a significant portion of Americans. And, as long as secular progressives continue to remain intolerant about the deeply held religious convictions of these Christians, and refuse to understand them as part of a larger conversation about national identity and the common good, it will be difficult for US democracy to move forward.
No, Evangelicals are not all crazy, but most of them are delusional, thinking that a nonexistent being has decreed that abortion, homosexuality, and extramarital sex are sinful, and that women are, in the main, breeding stock for men. I understand those values (as Jeff Tayler would say, they’re part of Faith Derangement Syndrome, often drilled into you as a child), but I refuse to respect them. And yes, I am intolerant of those values, and will fight them tooth and nail. As for a “conversation between secularist and Evangelicals” moving US democracy forward, that’s the wrong path. The way to move US democracy forward is to embrace Enlightenment values and battle the intolerant and authoritarian morality of right-wing Christians. In the end, the greatest “religious” threat to progress in the US is not secularism, but Evangelical Christianity. A god-given morality is a dangerous morality.
Ask yourself this: what kind of “respect” are we supposed to afford to the views of a man whose students must swear that homosexuality is a sin, destructive to the “body of Christ”?
But perhaps a more important question is this: why the bloody hell did Aeon publish such a dreadful piece of tripe in the first place?
h/t: Stephen S.
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That’s a superb and devastating rant, Jerry. 🙂
I look at Aeon every day and have been thinking the same thing about their increasing faithiest woo, but I haven’t managed to read any of it past the first paragraphs.
According to Wiki,
It may be that Fea is an aberration. After all, even prestigious schools have a few clinkers on their faculty (e.g. Michael Behe at Lehigh and Arthur Butz at Northwestern).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messiah_College
“It may be that Fea is an aberration. ”
Probably pretty typical. A religious college is quite capable of being good academically, at least outside the sciences. Even so, many of these rankings are based on criteria other than quality of education.
I haven’t been able to figure Aeon out either; I’ve read a few articles there that struck me as a bit wooish, which made me wonder if the superficial sophistication of the site was geared towards lending respectability to some silly ideas. Nothing this bad, though.
Yeah, that’s a cryin’ shame. Since the rise of religious Modernism in the 19th century, Evangelicals have been on the wrong side of History. Not in the rhetorical sense, but in the sense that they have clung to Bible ideas in preference to the increasing weight of human knowledge that undercuts them. No one has to respect their ideas (as opposed to their persons), and no one has to listen to their evangelism. My imagination has always failed just about the point where a religious person decides that their religion requires other people to conform to their beliefs. Go live your religion, fine, but don’t expect me to wear a hair shirt for you.
I guess one other thing to say is about Fea’s assertion that, “despite their demographic power,” Evangelicals are marginalized. Numbers don’t equate to power. Just because they are 25% of whatever doesn’t mean they automatically get anything. Blonds have a large demographic in the US, but we have failed to turn that to our political advantage. It all comes down to, sorry, no one cares.
I know I for one will be tuning up my violin to play amaudlin, melancholy interlude for those poor oppressed evangelicals in America. This particular gem scored a 10.0 on the McEnroe “you can’t be serious” scale:
“The leadership and faculty, when taken as a whole, largely reject the truth claims of Christianity or, at the very least, do not see Christianity as a useful system of belief to help shape campus and intellectual life.” Maybe that’s becasue it’s both patently not true and makes for a lousy sytem to shape anything grounded in relaity.
McEnroe scale. Hilarious.
You know The Umpire strikes back? (Ignore Dutch intro)
I would much rather talk about ways to improve the Constitution but then that’s just me. It would not look anything like the changes they are interested in anyway.
I suspect John Fea, like many of his followers, is highly confused about what religion should be about and what government is about. He simply cannot separate the two any more than the folks over in Saudi Arabia. But since he does not live in a country governed by evangelical Christians he will suffer and make all kinds of claims against the secular.
I’m not an intellectual, nor am I superior in any way, but I do know the difference between practicing your religious beliefs and insisting these same ideas become the beliefs that all of society live by. So I’ll just say to Mr. Fea, you can believe whatever you want, but do not think you can force any of it on the rest of us. If you think that is an attack on you or your beliefs, you are dead wrong.
Well said.
As far as evangelical groups on university campuses, I suspect he is referring to the requirement on many campuses that ‘recognized’ student groups be (a) open to all students who want to join (with certain exceptions such as auditions for limited membership musical groups) and (b) the leadership of the group is elected by the student members with no outside veto either before or after (e.g., no group constitution requiring that officers pass a test on correct belief [who decides they pass?], though requirements of having been a member for a certain period of time or attended a certain number of meetings are allowed). The student member voters are individually free to judge whether the person running for office has the correct belief when casting their votes. Nothing stops the evangelical groups from being unrecognized groups though it means they don’t get certain perks from the university.
I’m certain the various evangelical student groups at Stanford University (my local elite university) together make up the second largest religious group on campus (the Catholic Community is larger) and definitely dwarf the officially atheist groups (and the progressive Christian groups). Both the evangelicals and the Catholics can certainly turn out several hundred at big events. Now are evangelicals going to be challenged in their beliefs if they come to Stanford, yes (but then so are all students religious or not).
Mr Fea it appears has yet to realise Evangelicals are a failing species. Ever since the Millerite catastrophe in the 1840’s Evangelicals have been losing ground to rationalism. If they would care to study their own history they would see most of them are whats left of William Millers movement and he was wrong.
they confuse mockery with discrimination when it’s at them
and ignore the secular law for their religious one as they apply legal restrictions on others.
they also confuse respect with reverence.
John Fea says: “Whether it be academia, popular entertainment, or some other sector of culture, secular progressivism is a real threat to evangelical Christian values.” Nothing could make me happier. Apparently, Fea is afraid of the free exchange of ideas.
His contention that secular progressivism is a threat to democracy is absurd. The real danger is the religious right’s never ending demands for special privilege.
Fea’s diatribe may buck up the faithful, but I doubt that he will convince anyone else.
Indeed. He said said “threat” where he should’ve said “demand for neutrality”.
It’s certainly true that many evangelicals are intelligent and well educated, but I’m guessing that a huge proportion of that 25% figure quoted are fundamentalists. To be a fundamentalist is their right, but they must realise that they are distancing themselves from the commonly accepted modern day understanding of the world.
This kind of person is unlikely to be able to have achieved the educational requirements that teaching at one of the better universities is likely to require. The vast majority of evangelicals are, in reality, denying themselves access to many high level jobs.
I guess it comes with having lived in the bible-belt for so long, but every syllable reprinted from Fea in that piece translates to little more than, “wah, the mean old scientists won’t let us teach creationism,” to my estimation. Thanks for the Rodney Dangerfield reference, that made me chuckle.
Excellent commentary Jerry!
What bugs me is how the school has put things like theft and dishonesty in the same sentence as homosexuality and called them all sins. Then says secularists have un-Christian behaviour. The implication is that because we don’t see what the big deal is about any mutually-consenting adult sexual relationship (which is no-one else’s business), that we’re also thieves, liars etc.
You know what else the Bible calls an abomination? Eating pork. And cooking a kid goat in its mother’s milk. (And it mentions that one is an abomination more often than homosexuality!)
Why aren’t these Christian colleges leading the charge against barbecues, or declaring themselves bacon-free zones? Because it’s stupid to take notice of what some bronze-age goat herders thought was an abomination.
But when sex is involved, all the rules change. Except when they don’t. There’s no support for the chronic amount of incest, use of sex slaves, rape of captives, forced marriage, and polygamy that the Bible celebrates.
And these fu*kwits have been comparing Kim Davis favourably with Martin Luther King.
As a historian, I suspect Mr Fea occasionally finds himself at conferences — the annual AHA jamboree, perhaps — in which he becomes very aware that most of his colleagues around the country do not share his religion, or respect his religion. And, since he lives most of his life in the artificial bubble of an institution defined by its faith, he finds these occasional forays into the outer world disquieting, because they destroy the illusion he is able to maintain for the rest of the year — that his beliefs are what everyone believes, and his thoughts are what everyone thinks. This article is him trying, though failing, to find a rationale for his disquiet that allows him to maintain his illusion, because he’s discovered that it’s everyone else’s fault.
Evangelicals are under attack in secular colleges? You mean like Evangelicals and other Christians being required to sign a statement rejecting Jesus Christ, God, and Christianity as a a condition of admission or employment?
I never brandish my Ivy League degree, but I have enormous contempt for the Christian faith that did its best to brainwash me into believing pedophile priests when they lectured me about life. I know I’m not intellectually superior to most and that sort of thinking never enters my mind until I’m confronted with the moronic opinions of evangelicals of any faith. I prefer to see them as dopes rather than idiots, but I’ll go with idiots if that helps me be a good secular progressive. I’d like to hit them over the head with my degree from the University of Maryland to wake them up.
By kidnapping the Republican Party the religious right has deprived conservatives of taking part in a rational debate that includes conservative ideas unless those extreme views of theirs on abortion and women’s rights, etc. are included. It has made for ludicrous debate in our political system because every conservative must believe that a woman should not have the right to choose and finding a liberal who is against abortion is virtually impossible. Does anyone think for themselves? Can’t the parties see the absurdity of every candidate towing the party line on every issue? Most of us have a mixture of liberal and conservative views with a bent toward one or the other. All conservatives are not ogres and all liberals aren’t wimps, but the religious right has created such a polarization in politics that each side thinks the other is composed of idiots. Blaming secular humanism is just another example that teaches me that evangelicals are dopes.
Good points. Even when it comes to the economy, the views the Republicans adhere to have been taken over by this far right brand of religious nuttiness. I consider myself a moderate fiscally (though here in the United States, many of my views would be considered far left). I’m largely on board with reducing convoluted regulations and bureaucratic red tape, for example. I’m for keeping corporate taxes low enough to attract global companies and I’m definitely on board with trimming excessive Government spending. Of course, I part ways with the evangelicals when I say a large chunk of our excessive spending is on our military; and, I can’t get on board their crazy train that insists secular Government is always bad and must have its influence reduced in all areas. These views seem to follow directly from the evangelical idea that man’s law is subordinate to God’s law.
Today, I would venture to guess, it is virtually impossible for a scholar who is pro-life, believes that marriage is between a man and a woman, or does not fully embrace a progressive view of human history, to land a teaching post at one of these universities.
Might come as a surprise to Fea that those kinds of personal questions cannot be asked on interviews at mainstream institutions – unlike at Messiah, where I suspect the prospective hire is probably first handed the Covenant and asked if they’re OK with signing that before continuing.
In the first two series above from the Messiah college covenant — the personal characteristics promoted, and the activities suggested — a couple items are completely consistent with the goals of secular humanism, and none save “faithfulness” is inconsistent. (Even as to that one, secular humanists have no desire to restrict the faithfulness of evangelicals or any other religious group.)
As to the last series — setting out what the covenant is against — four of the eight items are shared with secular humanism. (Two others, drunkenness and profanity, are outside the scope of secular humanism, although there are doubtless secular humanists who personally disapprove of them as well.)
It is only as to the two remaining prohibitions addressing non-exploitive sexual conduct — non-marital intercourse and homosexuality — that we find any direct conflict between secular humanism and the evangelical covenant (and, then, only to the extent that evangelicals seek to foist their prohibitions on others, not as to what they elect to practice in private among themselves).
Fea writes of Christian culture warriors, “but not all of them are crazy.” That seems an admission that many of them are.
I would be interested in knowing what percentage of them are crazy in his estimation, and whether he ever argues against them.
How in the world would a University know if a candidate for a position is pro-life unless the candidate volunteered the information? While I am not sure it is illegal to ask the question, it certainly opens the University up to charges of discrimination if they do ask it and it would be a hell of an onus to demonstrate that they aren’t discriminating one way or another based on the question.
At my company, which is in the private sector, we undergo training on what is allowable to ask during an interview. Age, marital status, religious and political views, even where they live are all off limits. We don’t want to give even the slightest reason for a candidate to think we’re evaluating them on anything other than the requisite skill set for the position. I would think Universities would have the same concerns, whether they’re public or private.
“What Fea doesn’t like is that their views aren’t popular”
And where Fea’s views aren’t popular is among the Aeon’s readers, if one refers to the contributions in the discussion.
John Fea is a serious historian whose book, “Was America founded as a Christian nation?”, was written for Christians as a corrective to David Barton’s pseudohistory and as an introduction to what a genuine historical perspective looks like. So no, he’s not just an evangelical hack as some of the commenters here seem to suppose.
He wrote this the Aeon article as an effort to help secularists understand where evangelicals are coming from. For my part, he’s only succeeded in reinforcing my view that too many Christians find mere equality to be a lower status than they feel entitled to. I do respect Fea as a scholar, but this isn’t an impressive argument.
“Too many Christians find mere equality to be a lower status than they feel entitled to.”
Well said!
I second Dr. Athe’s comment.
The lifeblood of a democracy is debate. That’s how it moves forward. “Conversations” between people who disagree on significant factual issues are going to involve getting into the reasons why they disagree.
Just blandly announcing that you identify with X religion and the special holy sacred revealed faith of X says this is good or that is bad is not enough. That’s not a conversation: that’s a conversation stopper.
It doesn’t matter how many pull this, or how deeply they want to be able to pull this. Pointing out that the general public doesn’t care about special holy sacred revealed faith — and shouldn’t care about it — isn’t intolerance. It’s where tolerance finally starts.
An additional reason why evangelicals are under attack is the prevalence of too many with poor character.
I can’t prove it, but I think Hollywood felt much freer to lampoon or slur Christianity after we had three scandals in a two-year period: Jimmy Swaggart’s prostitution scandal (1988), Jim Bakker’s money and sex scandals(1987), and Oral Roberts “God will ‘call me home’ if I don’t raise 8 million dollars”. (1987)
A few conservative evangelicals recognize the problem, but not a lot.
The philosophical architect of the religious right, Francis Schaeffer, is now known to have privately greatly distrusted Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson on character grounds, and Ronald Reagan’s Surgeon General, C. Everett Coop, decried the “intellectual dishonesty” of his fellow evangelicals re discussion of AIDS and condoms. (Koop started off as a darling of conservatives due to his strong anti-abortion stance, but eventually became more of a hero to liberals, because of his principled and responsible response to AIDS.) These voices don’t seem to get enough airplay.
There is also the patent intellectual dishonesty of creationists, which is offensive in a much deeper way that the intellectual gymnastics and speculations of BioLogos and Templeton.
Finally, I think it can be easily documented that evangelicals today have what can be called a low-grade “persecution complex”, which I think is being abetted by an avoidance of taking responsibility for one’s destructive actions. As has been noted in literature on the “martyr complex”, the person suffering from same often thinks they are being persecuted because of their high integrity, but in fact evangelicals are often faulted for a lack of integrity.
As I have posted here before, there are a lot of religious movies I like, (notably “Ben-Hur” and “Man for all Seasons”) but “God is not Dead” is not only the worst religious movie I have ever seen, but arguably just about the worst movie of ANY kind I have ever seen (even “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” is better.) That film illustrates this kind of persecution/martyr complex that I’m talking about here.
re: “God is Not Dead:” There’s a sequel in the works! A high school teacher gets in trouble for talking about Jesus. Starring Jesse Metcalf, Robin Givens and . . .Pat Boone! So you know it’ll be great!
Pat Boone is still with us?
My thoughts exactly. Apparently he’s alive and kicking at 81. It seems like he should be older, given so many of his contemporaries died decades ago.
Well, whaddaya know. My Mom who died at age 93, four years ago, had a bit of a crush on PB, back in the day. I had no idea it was of the “robbing the cradle” variety.
When you’re young, they’re all just “adults,” remember? But maybe you’re still young…
This is true. Kids usually have no idea how old “big people” are. I find the older I get, the younger old people look. Youth is relative…my age is given away by my username.
Ah, you have ~ 1.5 decades on me. How encouraging!
Do you update your username each year? 🙂
Haha, no need. My birth year is constant. 🙂
That would imply 1980 (or 1880?)
And we assumed 80 was your age (or at least I did)
Bah, kids!
cr
Ah, you got me! But I’m very glad older people are looking younger to you. 🙂
OK, you’re five years older than my son, then.
He got me too (obviously).
By the time I was his current age, I’d been 30 for five years. I stayed 30 till it became 100% inaccurate. I still *feel* like I’m 30 (even if my body doesn’t).
cr
So what you’re saying is my writing ability shows wisdom well beyond my years? Or am I starting to sound senile? 😉
I will say that the latter is a possibility as I have posted on this site a few drinks in on a number of occasions. My wife swears I drink like someone half a century older than I am (well aged whiskey and brandy for me).
“I still *feel* like I’m 30 (even if my body doesn’t). ”
And that’s the hell of it, eh?
I’m still in my twenties … mentally. My wife might say even younger, sometimes.
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When I drink brandy, I’m 85. When I interact with my kids, I’m 12 (my wife swears she has 3 kids sometimes). My coworkers say I’m young at heart; that is, until we have conversations about which curse words are okay and I get “millennialsplained” about why certain topics and words are off limits. This, in turn, sets off my desire to drink well aged liquors and embrace my inner octogenarian. And then I come to WEIT to get a refreshing dose of free speech…
No, at 30-something you’re probably at the peak of your mental abilities.
It’s all downhill from there.
I’ve been going downhill for… well, decades. The fact I can still walk, talk and spell my name just shows how unbelievably shit-hot awesome I must have been when I was your age, young feller.
cr
Pat Boone is still alive? Sounds like he’s going to die (in the theatrical sense) –
‘re: “God is Not Dead:” There’s a sequel in the works! A high school teacher gets in trouble for talking about Jesus. Starring Jesse Metcalf, Robin Givens and . . .Pat Boone!’
cr
Accounting for the vicissitudes of/difference in age, I contemplate the statistical mortality of, e.g., Glenn Frey’s contemporaries.
Tony Bennett remains alive and in reasonably good health, painting and singing, turning 90 this year.
As are Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks. Statistics being what they are, this is expected. For all the nonagenarians still going, there’s the offset of the people who died three decades or more earlier on in life. In Pat Boone’s case, this extra time on Earth unfortunately doesn’t equate to extra wisdom; Google indicates he was a birther and still vehemently opposes gay marriage. Perhaps we can still hope for a deathbed deconversion? 😉
According to John Boy, who is a sociologist with a touchy-feely defense of religion agenda, Aeon (and Templeton-funded Nautilus) is set up to “to bring together digital media and religion.”
“Not long before Aeon launched, the Hains set up a charity called “The Touchstone Trust for Education” in the UK. According to the deed, the charity makes grants to support, among other things, “artists and researchers who are working on projects exploring contemporary beliefs, values and rituals.””
“The first articles published by Aeon include an article on the New Atheism by the philosopher Michael Ruse and an article on Western Buddhism by the British writer Tim Lott. Recently Aeon also published a widely-read article by philosopher Graham Priest discussing surprising parallels between ancient Buddhist philosophy and modern Western mathematical logic. But the site also publishes on general themes in the social and natural sciences in which the element of values and beliefs is not as central. ”
[ https://www.jboy.space/log/ssrc-digital-media-reflection.html (2014)]
I guess you can say that even of Boy is projecting the insertion of religion into a magazine (or two) that writes on science, the magazine certainly attracts the likes of him.
While this may be true, I know of plenty of good colleges that have evangelical Christian student organizations. I’m not sure what Fea is referring to here.
I think I can answer this one. There have been several Evangelical Christian student organizations that have lost their status as official student groups because they would force their members to sign “statements of faith” similar to the Community Covenant mentioned above. These directly contradict the non-discrimination policies that most colleges have since the groups are purposely trying to block homosexuals and non-Christians from becoming members. So the Christian student groups have lost their official status and no longer have access to money and resources offered to other student groups. It helps feed their persecution complex immensely.
Intolerant? Is there anyone on the planet who hasn’t heard the rejoinder “yes, I won’t tolerate your intolerance”?
And what precisely is it about the religious that we don’t understand?
“destructive of community life and the body of Christ”
How can it be destructive of the body of Christ? I suppose extreme S&M necrophilia might be, if such a thing exists, but I woulda thought it was about 2000 years too late.
I must stop taking idiotic metaphors literally…
cr
Sorry, but by the criterion of “believing in the existence of an invisible sky fairy who listens to believer’s prayers and interferes with reality on the behalf of said believers”, then an Evangelical Christian – in fellowship with an Evangelical Muslim, and Evangelical Buddhist, and an Evangelical Pastafarian (could you find such a creature ; and this sounds like the set up for a joke) – is by definition, delusional. They have the delusion of the existence of a supernatural entity with influence on the Real World.
To answer the other questions Aeon poses,
- It should do for the reasons given above ;- No.
- [Shrug] Here's a 10p contribution to your bus fare to find someone who cares.
- Probably useful. Reintroducing food rationing would probably be more effective though.
- I refer that question to the Constitutional experts form ISIS who are dominating the debate.
Who commented above about “equality” being somewhat lower a position than that which the Evangelical delusionals would actually be happy with.
I’m just going to have to check – in Britain, an “Evangelical” means someone who makes significant effort to recruit others to their particular gnat’s bifurcation of a cult. It might be different in EN_US. Ah, Wikipedia makes it sound more like there is a distinct set of beliefs, while I’m thinking more of “evangelism”. Still, an annoying bunch of deluded irritants.
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