Dear President Obama,
I think you were referring to people like me when you used the word “nonbeliever” at the end of a list of members of different faiths in your inauguration speech earlier today. Respectfully, that was a mistake, I thought you should know. If you think about it, Christians, Jews, Muslims, and I are “nonbelievers” in Hinduism, just as Jews and Hindus are nonbelievers in Jesus Christ qua son of God, just as Jews, Hindus, and Christians are nonbelievers in Muhammad, and so on. We’re all selective believers and nonbelievers, Mr. President.
Most people knew you meant “atheists,” just as you know what they mean when they call you “black” or “African-American,” when in fact you’re biracial. You roll with it. The cultural significance of your democratic ascendancy retains its positive implications about widespread tolerance in America regardless of the lack of pinpoint accuracy in the words people use to describe the ancestral implications of your skin-color. But perhaps sometimes you feel an urge to clarify that your mother is white when people call you a black man. I empathize with you, and similarly, I feel an urge to clarify what I believe in when my President refers to me as a “nonbeliever.”
Those of us who reject mystical claims, do not reject “belief” per se. We reject faith, that is, accepting propositions as true for which no evidence is demonstrable. For example, I believe in reason and imagination, the creative and experimental pursuit of truth in the arts and sciences, and the power of ideas to inspire accomplishment, peace, and heroism. I believe in human civilization based on liberty and the rule of law. I believe in love without self-sacrifice. I believe in the economic and social dynamism of voluntary, peaceful human action. I believe in myself and loved ones. You called me a nonbeliever, and now you can see how that made no sense, and was actually a bit inconsiderate. I’m rolling with it, but I felt you and anyone else who might share your perspective should benefit from a heads-up. Atheists are believers, too.
Perhaps some people who claim to be nihilists would qualify as “nonbelievers,” but I’ve never met a real nihilist. I’ve met people who believe strongly in a set of ideas that they describe as “nihilistic” (ie, they’re “believers” in something, not nothing). For the record, most atheists would not claim to be nihilists.
How should you have referred to people who don’t believe in the supernatural? That was clearly your goal and, by the way, I appreciate your inclusive intent. After eight years of W.’s cold shoulder, it was a refreshing change I can believe in (hey, you just fulfilled a campaign promise!). In the future, an affirmative approach to addressing atheistic believers would be ” those who seek meaning and truth without faith in the supernatural.” If that’s deemed politically risky, you might try, “fellow Americans whose beliefs are not faith-based.”
Thank you for your time and consideration, Mr. President.
Check this out from Politico:
Obama plans to ask Congress for a stimulus package of $675 billion to $775 billion, so the planned tax cuts will total about $270 billion to $310 billion.
So Bush gave us tax cuts and record spending, and now Obama’s going to do the same damn thing. Government spending in excess of its revenue as a path to economic prosperity. Does anybody believe that this is possible? That wealth has ever been created in this way? It’s preposterous, but will anyone in the mainstream media dare to say as much? Of course, Russell Roberts over at cafehayek has quickly identified the fundamental lie at the heart of this proposal:
An increase in spending coupled with lower tax collections is an INCREASE in taxes. AN INCREASE in taxes. NOT A TAX CUT. If I spend more money and collect less, the government is promising to collect more taxes in the future. It is not a tax cut. Not a tax cut. Not a tax cut. And when you don’t cut rates but rather give people a lump sum of $500, there are no incentive effects other than to increase the probability that the US Treasury will be unable to honor its obligations in the future.
What makes this level of basic deceit palatable to fellow citizens? Why are so few outraged by the essential dishonesty involved in a public policy that promises prosperity today at the expense of prosperity tomorrow?
I think it’s because many would prefer to believe the lie. They prefer the comfortable feelings that arise from their faith in the virtuous intent of the State and in its power to make good on its promises. And the quantification of that faith is the national debt and what it affords us.
Currently, the U.S. debt is over $50,000,000,000,000.00 (trillion!). One extraordinary leap of faith after another, and for what? Has the quality of health care improved? Is public education better today than it was two decades ago? Is our society better off with prisons swelling from drug use/possession arrests?
Obama’s asking us to tolerate another leap of faith with his proposed stimulus program. People seem eager to extend to him and his fellow professional pols more faith. They seem to think they can afford to do this as if their per capita share of the national debt is not ~$180,000.
Accepting propositions as true for which no evidence is demonstrable is the essence of faith. It is an evasion of reality to suppose that Obama is a magician instead of a professional politician, that wealth is created by targeted subsidies instead of voluntary trade. It is our culture’s thick-headed reliance on faith-based public policy that produces the success of our current batch of elected officials. Their power is a consequence not a cause of most American voters’ preference for fairy tales instead of facts.
What I wouldn’t do for a public policy approach guided by science instead of the whims of self-interested politicians. Though Democrats have always tacitly prided themselves on their secular sensibilities, in truth their faith in big government is as illogical and destructive as faith in the supernatural, if not moreso.
