Latest Casualties: On George Tiller's Murder, and other things

We've all heard by now about the murder of George Tiller (known to the Christian Right as "Tiller the Baby Killer").

I thought about writing a post when this happened, as so many others did, but I felt like I had to think about it. Then I read PZ Myers' response to Frank Schaeffer's apology for creating an atmosphere of hatred surrounding the public controversy over abortion.

Schaeffer (and his father), authors and shapers of the modern Christian Right, is one of those intellectuals that a lot of my friends and allies like to dismiss as a "para-intellectual" or a tool. He is an example of someone who is clearly very intelligent despite being the victim of a twisted worldview that sees Christianity as deserving a role in government far in excess of the ideal of neutrality that supposedly governs relationships between the state and religious establishments in the U.S. Obviously I don't agree with him politically or theologically, but that doesn't mean that I think he's stupid. I think he believes some ridiculous things, but the extent to which he has gone to influence others to further his agenda and the agenda of his allies demonstrates his intelligence and his understanding of the theory of mind. Simply put, this guy knows how to make friends and influence people. It's a talent the secular/non-theist movement desperately (and I DO mean desperately) needs to get a handle on.

C.S. Lewis is another brilliant mind. Galileo. Francis Bacon. Albert Einstein (marginally). Martin Luther King. The list goes on and on. All these people believed in God, whether they were "theists" or "deists" or "pantheists."

PZ can complain, but I think Schaeffer's apology was not only genuine but probably the best we'll ever get from the Christian Right. Yes, this does show that religion is not a valid moral compass (I wouldn't say it corrupts morality though, I just think religion and morality have almost nothing to do with each other causally). And Schaeffer's criticism of the anti-Obama anti-Christ communist non-American bullshit rhetoric coming out of the Republican Party... well you have to appreciate a good propagandists calling out bad propagandists on a shitty job. Seriously. Schaeffer in that video admits the very thing that has made people call ME crazy for talking about it: the effort by the leaders of the Christian Right to foster an atmosphere of hate and intolerance, and its spectacular failure (in propandist speak, "mistake.") See, guys like Schaeffer and me are on the same wavelength. I just think he's a frakking coward and a liar, as he clearly KNEW what he was doing. Remember, I do believe that apology was genuine.

I don't think it makes up for a murder of a public figure, and I don't consider the violent wing of the Pro-Life/Anti-Choice movement to be a different movement from the mainstream, non-violent faction. Frak forbid, if one of my allies in the secular/non-theist movement did anything close to murder, I hope to FUCK that any public figure in our movement would do the same.

Look... I'm a frakking insider. I KNOW that there are people who, in the name of atheism, are fostering an atmosphere of intolerance. Granted it's not to the same degree as the Christian Right, but that shouldn't matter. NOW... if you are reading this and you recognize this behavior in yourself- as I do- I hope you think about it and take it to heart.

Seriously, I used to have this naive hope that the idea of the Culture War could be buried, and I still want that to happen one day, but now I realize that the culture war is fought over that very concept: pluralism vs. singularism. I'm on the side of the pluralists in that I am willing to take the chance that I might rationally and peacefully disagree with other pluralists and that these disagreements will be worked out as equitably as possible. I'm willing to compromise. I'm willing to be amenable.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Preview: AS I HAVE DISCUSSED PREVIOUSLY ON THIS BLOG, MANY OF THE THINGS WRITTEN IN THEODORE KACZYNSKI's "UNABOMBER MANIFESTO" ONCE RAN TRUE TO ME...