The Three Stages of Denial
Denial of global warming often goes through three stages. First, denial that global warming is real. Next, denial that humans play a role. Last, denial that anything can be done about it. Only after that last stage of denial is overcome can progress begin. Rod Dreher of The Dallas Morning News has reached that third stage of denial. He smugly relates how quickly he can kill a conversation about global warming just by pointing out the flaws in proposed solutions. As if no one has ever considered that slowing global warming and ameliorating its negative environmental impact won't come cheaply. As if his own status quo strategy (dare I call it "stay the course"?) itself isn't impractical for various political, economic and scientific reasons.
I'm reminded of the scene in the movie "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" where Butch and Sundance find themselves on the edge of a cliff, caught between certain capture and hanging at the hands of a pursuing posse and a death-risking leap off the cliff into a river far below. Sundance won't jump, finally admitting that he doesn't know how to swim. Butch laughs out loud, saying "The fall alone is enough to kill you!"
When the status quo is untenable and you have no good choices available, then the least bad choice is what you choose to do. Rod Dreher will eventually join Butch and Sundance in that leap from the cliff. Not because it's easy or because it guarantees success, but because it offers the only hope for success, however slim. The status quo leads to disaster.
Driving Illegals Underground
Bob Ray Sanders of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram dares to take an unpopular stand. He comes right out and says "New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer was right the first time when he proposed issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants." Asked if she agreed, Hillary Clinton waffled a bit in her support of Gov. Spitzer. After a barrage of criticism and Gov. Spitzer's own retreat on the issue, she changed her answer in the next debate to a flat "No". Only Gov. Bill Richardson dared to stand firm, defending signing a similar bill in New Mexico as a matter of public safety, a tool for identifying residents of New Mexico and decreasing the number of uninsured motorists.
This incident foretells the future of immigration reform in this country. Reformers will be unable to muster a majority to get comprehensive reform through Congress. Conservatives will exploit cultural backlash against piecemeal reform. Poor, unskilled immigrants will still be needed and wanted and hired for low-wage jobs, but roadblocks against filling those jobs legally will remain high. What meager rights and privileges and benefits illegal aliens possess will be repealed. More and more punitive measures will be passed. Illegal immigrants in this country will be driven more and more into the shadows, not allowed to sleep inside our city limits or send their children to our schools. We will become two Americas: one of affluence and rights and privileges and one of poverty and exploitation and living outside the law. Bob Ray Sanders points out that encouraging this state of affairs actually wins elections for many politicians. As long as that's so, expect things to get much worse before they get better.
God is Like the Wind
God is like the wind: "You can't see it, you can't touch it, you can't catch it, you can't pin it down, but you can see what it does. And you know that it's there." At least, according to a Jesuit author, the Rev James Martin, in an essay cited by DallasNews Religion blogger Bruce Tomaso.
Besides the obvious falsehood about our inability to catch the wind (windmills? sailboats? vacuums and bellows?), Martin misrepresents the position of skeptics. He says, "Most atheists conclude that if there isn't a logical proof for God, then God doesn't exist."
Most atheists don't make that mistake. Atheists simply find the evidence for the existence of God to be unconvincing, just like the evidence for the existence a celestial teapot or a flying spaghetti monster is unconvincing. Most atheists know that doesn't prove celestial teapots don't exist, only that there's no compelling reason to believe in them.
Atheists don't demand "proof", or even evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. Just a preponderance of evidence would lead a host of scientists into the field of God research. But believers can't provide enough evidence to make it even a close call. The Rev. Martin admits as much, saying that belief in God "transcends rationality." Defies rationality would be more like it.
The Rev. Martin rhapsodizes about love and longing and joy. That isn't evidence of God's existence, unless he wants us to believe that God's reality is nothing more than the reality of Santa Claus. I think most atheists would go along with Francis P. Church of The New York Sun, who famously wrote in 1897:
"Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy."
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