Townhall.com, Where Your Opinion Counts
Talk Radio:   Bill Bennett   Mike Gallagher   Dennis Prager   Michael Medved   Hugh Hewitt   
BREAKING NEWS  LeftArrow - Townhall.com : Conservative, Political, Republican   RightArrow - Townhall.com : Conservative, Political, Republican  
Columns, funnies & more in your inbox!
Login | What's Hot
  • Check the boxes and send us your email address to receveive your free newsletter
  • Your daily must-read of conservative columns, cartoons and news. Coulter, Sowell, Krauthammer and more.
  • Townhall.com’s weekly inside scoop on what’s happening behind the scenes in the world of politics. When news breaks, we report.
  • Signup to receive the latest daily Townhall cartoons
Saturday, December 06, 2008
Kathleen Parker :: Townhall.com Columnist
Them Oogedy-Boogedy Blues
by Kathleen Parker
Forward Print Share Single Page
Vote on It:
Average Vote:
[+] Text [-]
 
 
Poll
Will the Dems' health care Christmas Present to America be an improvement or detriment to our health care system?


The broad perception among centrists, moderates, conservative Democrats, renegade Republicans, etc., is that the GOP is the party of white Christians to the exclusion of others, some of whom might also be social conservatives.

One can believe this or not. But as the gazillions who have written me to say either that "God Is Here To Stay" or that "Conservatives Won't Be Silenced" ought best to know: Just because you don't believe something doesn't make it untrue.

It may be, as Ponnuru insists, that Barack Obama won for other reasons (health care, for instance) than that evangelicals repelled the less overtly religious. But oogedy-boogedyness remains a problem for the GOP, as hundreds of other letter writers confirm.

As long as the religious right is seen as controlling the Republican Party, the GOP will continue to lose some percentage of voters, and that percentage likely will increase over time as younger voters shift away from traditional to more progressive values.

The cause is not helped when someone of the stature of Rick Warren interviews the leading presidential candidates in his church, questioning them about their faith. If that's not a religious test, I don't know what is.

The glue that binds the GOP's religious right -- social issues, especially abortion -- is not insignificant and doesn't deserve to be dismissed. But nor should those issues be tied to scripture. Some religious conservatives understand this, but the memo apparently isn't reaching all the pews.

They might take a cue from Nat Hentoff, a self-described Jewish-atheist, who has written as eloquently as anyone about the "indivisibility of life" and the slippery slope down which abortion leads. He uses logic and reason to argue that being pro-life, rather than resolving the religious question of ensoulment, is really a necessary barrier against selective killing, such as when someone else decides it's your time to die.

Hentoff's arguments, and others on related issues, ultimately may fail. But at least they will fail for reasons other than that oogedy-boogedy got in the way.

1 2
| Full Article & Comments | < Previous
Share:
Forward Print Single Page
Vote on It:
Average Vote:
 
About The Author
Kathleen Parker is a syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group.
 
TOWNHALL DAILY: Be the first to read Kathleen Parker's column. Sign up today and receive Townhall.com daily lineup delivered each morning to your inbox.

Join The Debate!

Post Your Comment
(204 comments so Far)
View in ascending order     View in descending order
Reply # 1
Date: Dec 23, 2008 - 12:13 PM EST
Kathleen's preoccupied with bitterness.
Kathleen, we get it. You’re preoccupied within your own brand of bitterness.

However, perhaps you should try considering that it's not the GOP that has a "religious problem". Our nation, founded directly on the principles of Christianity, indeed does have a "religious problem".

You should consider that so because most people alive today, & most people that have ever lived, have confessed to having had some degree of “religious“ “Faith”. And to having had at least one deeply “religious” experience.

With that all so Kathleen, we the professed ~believers~ of God’s existence, must have either failed to respond properly (apparently according to you, & others of your ilk) to the modern godless version of “Education”. Which should be more properly & accurately titled as, Indoctro-cation.

You see Kathleen, we ~believers~ understand that we live in a misshapen culture today. Where the so called “Educated class”, those more like yourself, are actually increasingly becoming the “Indoctro-cated” class.

(Y)our educational systems have managed to cognitively replace (y)our own sense of God’s presence, with pseudo science. Rather than seeing & admitting to God’s hand, as gently guiding the universe.

You & those like you are attempting to replace all of the mysteries of God, with other equally mysterious & unexplained, fully secular forces.

To do so, you’ve created, accepted, & now demand that all others also accept, your mysterious forces, known as “Dark Matter”, “Dark Energy”, and "Random Selection", as the forces guiding the universe.

You do so despite your complete inability to prove, quantify, or even directly observe the presence of any of the forces you attempt to codify. And, despite your own true knowledge, of God.
Flag as Offensive

Reply # 2
Date: Dec 9, 2008 - 3:59 AM EST
KATHLEEN: MAKE A LIFE, NOT A LIVING..#2


"And as he worked, he ignored death and transcended life, and so age looked over his shoulder, breathless with delight, and neglected to touch the artist in its absorption with the art. The decades and the centuries, in the mood of Eternity, became a part of the ring. Men who did not seek perfection, but merely pay or praise, completed their little works, and such works and workers faded. Only equal artists and arts - the Taj Mahal, the Parthenon, the cathedrals of Chartres and Rouen, the marbles of Michelangelo, the canvases of Rembrandt, the plays of Shakespeare ... and the humble housewife baking bread with love and joy, or the farmer eighty years old planting new orchards over his hills - remained as his co-eternalists. The error of man's follies dissolved like shadows around him, for only beauty is truth, and only truth is beauty. And still the artist of the ring worked on, ageless, timeless, beyond pain or pleasure, failure or success, in the bliss of creation.

And at last he said, "All that I can do is done; the ring is at last a ring!" It was only then that he wondered if there were any finger to wear that to which he has given his love and labor. And he heard a Voice beyond all voices, and he saw a Finger beyond all fingers; and the Voice said, "Set it upon My finger, and I will wear it forever and forever."

That ring is now a new galaxy of suns and planets, shining in beauty upon the Hand of God."

Make a Life - Not a "Living
Flag as Offensive
Sign Up to Post Your CommentsSign Up to Post Your Comments
If you are already registered, click here to login. Otherwise, please take a few seconds to register with Townhall.com. Once you sign up, you’ll be able to post your comments immediately, use the action center, get podcasts, and more!
Note: Fields marked with a red asterisk (*) are required.
Salutation:
First Name:
*
Last Name:
*
Email:
*
Nickname:
*
Note: Nick name will be shown when you post comments.
Address 1:
*
Address 2:
City:
 *
State:
 *
Zip:
 *
Phone:
       
Your daily must-read of conservative columns, cartoons and news. Coulter, Sowell, Krauthammer and more.
(Bi-Weekly) We highlight the best opportunities from our partners for surveys, action items and more.