10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
WE DISAGREE THAT YOUR "MORAL" STANDARDS ARE OBJECTIVE, December 31, 2005
This review is from: The Wit and Wisdom of Cal Thomas (Hardcover)
I first read one of Cal Thomas's articles when a fellow worker passed out Xeroxed copies of "We Have Lost an Objective Standard of Values, Morals" several years ago. Since then, I have read his articles as they appear in the paper. From reading the review of his book, Blinded by Might, I see that he has finally come to realize that politics corrupts religion rather than religion uplifting politics; this makes me respect him far more than I ever expected to. "We have politicized the gospel with our agendas," he --the coauthor, Ed Dobson -- writes. "To be part of the Christian right is to be part of the Republican party. For some, this means to be a real Christian, you must be a Republican. That is heresy and is only a short distance from the extremism of my Irish counterparts." Yes, Cal, you do have a nose on your face.
Frankly, America has become a rather uglier place than it was thirty years ago, a condition for which the religious right is largely responsible. Thomas disdains socialized medicine (claiming, absolutely incorrectly, that the U. S. has the best health care in the world), environmentalists, people who are upset by the fact that the U. S. is guilty of torturing prisoners of war, and (apparently) the head start program. The list is long. Thomas supports tax cuts for the rich, while 25% of Americans live in poverty because they work for billion-dollar corporations that refuse to pay a living wage. Thomas quotes lines from the Koran that support murder and war in the name of religion with such self-righteous relish that one would suppose that one could not find similar justifications of evil in the Bible. He writes that America has made many Moslem nations wealthy by buying their oil, and it is not our fault if the leaders are greedy and permit their people to live in poverty. Surely, it is not entirely our fault, but the Christian right scorns the notion that an insistence on human rights should be a part of the American political and economic agenda. America has a history of allying itself with human monsters, of sucking the wealth from undeveloped countries so that their people are essentially forcibly driven to extremism. "Expediency - at any price to maintain personal peace and affluence is the accepted procedure," Thomas says, as though it were those of us who despise the "Moral" Majority who were guilty of this. This is the expediency of Corporate Capitalism, with which the Christian right has formed a perverted, grotesque union that is surely antithetical to any sane understanding of Christ's teaching.
If Cal Thomas expects to be taken seriously as an intellectual by people who have not bought into his dogma, he needs to be more careful that what he writes is coherent and factual. He complains that America has abandoned "an objective standard and the process by which it might be discovered," but then he whines "the Left has universal standards based on `politically correct' absolute standards." So clearly the Left does have "objective" values, just ones that he does not like. "Few are formally exposed to philosophy anymore," he writes (incorrectly implying that Americans used to be exposed to philosophy) "much less epistemology, the study of the origin of knowledge." Actually, epistemology is the study of the validity of knowledge claims. If you want to effectively chastise other people for their ignorance, please, at least, get the definition right. "In physics, we know nature abhors a vacuum," Thomas says. Actually, physics says that all of intergalactic space is vacuum, which might lead us to believe that nature loves vacuum. Aristotle said that nature abhors a vacuum to support a theory of motion long since discredited.
Perhaps these are nitpicky points, but the point that Thomas wants to make is that "when people stop believing in God, the danger is not that they will believe in nothing, but that they will believe in anything." The problem with this is that the Christian Right insists that we understand the Bible as the inerrant word of God, despite the fact that this strict interpretation defies the scientific evidence from fields as diverse as geology, embryology, biochemistry, and astronomy, as well as logic, common sense, and simple human decency. Such belief is already "anything." We want something real to believe in.
Thomas blames the current state of moral disagreement upon "the most empty and dangerous philosophy of all: Pragmatism." He then gives a snot-nosed definition of pragmatism as "doing what seems to work without regard to fixed principles of right or wrong." Actually, pragmatists believe that our best way of determining truth is to see what works. In the absence of evidence to support one of two conflicting views, such as the existence or nonexistence of objective morality, then choose the view that is most uplifting. Cal complains, incorrectly, that we have abandoned a process by which an objective moral code might be discovered. We have not - it is pragmatism. What he does not like is that we have abandoned dogmatic moral codes that insist that we behave in a specified way despite the fact that these values have been proven not to work. We do remember what family values really are, and we are happy to reject yours.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
15 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One liners and simpleton statements to live by, May 27, 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: The Wit and Wisdom of Cal Thomas (Hardcover)
Several years ago there was a not so popular TV program called J.J.Starbuck. This eccentric Texas millionaire used many short stories and one-liners that speak to the soul of folks and a nation that often left folks with a befuddled look but at the same time the hearer would contemplate the thought over what was said. The Wit and Wisdom of Cal Thomas is such a similar presentation. Each one of the stements that I read in the book just adds to my list of those that I like to reflect on and share with others. A much needed and pleasent way to retort others with something catchy and lasting and really nonthreating. Great work Cal!
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
