Who, among the rational supporters of Barack Obama, does not hope that he is lying
when he professes belief, not only in God, but in evangelical Christinanity? That all
those years of enthusiastic participation in the United Church of Christ, all those
impassioned professions of fealty to Abraham’s god, have been a calculated fraud
perpetrated in the name of expedience, that what looks like either Machiavellian
duplicity or willful self-delusion is in fact a protracted act of self-sacrifice, the
subordination of personal integrity to a greater good. Again Brother Sam finds nothing
so flexible, so relative, as the moral absolutism of believers. An exception, custom
crafted on the spot to suit the terrain, is always within easy reach anytime the ground
between right and wrong becomes too uneven to negotiate with certainty. Goddamn.
when he professes belief, not only in God, but in evangelical Christinanity? That all
those years of enthusiastic participation in the United Church of Christ, all those
impassioned professions of fealty to Abraham’s god, have been a calculated fraud
perpetrated in the name of expedience, that what looks like either Machiavellian
duplicity or willful self-delusion is in fact a protracted act of self-sacrifice, the
subordination of personal integrity to a greater good. Again Brother Sam finds nothing
so flexible, so relative, as the moral absolutism of believers. An exception, custom
crafted on the spot to suit the terrain, is always within easy reach anytime the ground
between right and wrong becomes too uneven to negotiate with certainty. Goddamn.
| A Cynic's View |
| The Diogenes Vote |
| Sunday, October 5, 2008 |
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