-- Evangelicals believe that gays can "pray away" their
homosexuality.
-- Evangelicals believe Earth is only thousands of years
old and that men lived alongside dinosaurs.
-- Evangelicals oppose same-sex marriage.
Given how often they are made, it's worth analyzing these
charges.
With regard to man-made global warming, the accusation that
all skeptics are anti-science is despicable and, indeed,
anti-science. The list of prominent scientists who dissent
-- including the scientist widely considered the dean of
climate science in America, Richard Lindzen of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology -- is so long that
there are entire websites that feature their names and
credentials: There's a Wikipedia page titled "List of
Scientists opposing the mainstreat scientific assessment of
global warming" and a website called PetitionProject.org.
The authors of the Times op-ed piece, like virtually all
other left-wing intellectuals who comment on the subject,
dismiss all skepticism regarding the Al Gore hypothesis that
humanity is headed toward a worldwide apocalypse due to heat
resulting from man-made carbon emissions. This is a
reflection on these intellectuals' politics, not on their
commitment to science.
With regard to "praying away" homosexuality -- if it is
indeed the normative evangelical position that all gays,
with the right faith, can cease being sexually attracted to
the same sex -- that position is wrong. But to the best of
my knowledge, that is not the normative evangelical
position; evangelicals believe that no more than they
believe that prayer alone will end any undesired physical
condition.
At the same time, the opposite position -- the position of
nearly all the liberal intellectual world -- that everyone's
sexual orientation is fixed is a position also driven by
ideology rather than by science. Society has a huge
influence on how people act out their sexuality, including
the gender of person with whom they choose to be sexual.
Human sexuality -- especially female -- is far more elastic
than the intellectual community admits. And the widespread
liberal belief that, all things being equal, it makes no
difference whether a child is raised by a mother and father
or by two fathers or two mothers is hardly rational. On the
issue of homosexuality, the intellectual left is just as
driven by ideology as evangelicals.
With regard to those evangelicals -- and for that matter,
those ultra-orthodox Jews -- who believe that Earth is less
than 10,000 years old and that there either were no
dinosaurs or that they lived alongside human beings, my
reaction has always been: So what? I believe that Earth is
many millions of years old, that "six days" is meant as six
periods of time (the sun wasn't even created until the third
day, so how could there have been any days before then?) and
that dinosaurs preexisted man by millions of years.
But what real-life problem is caused by people who believe
otherwise? Does it affect any of their important behaviors
in life? Do they not take their children to doctors? Do they
oppose medical research? Do they reject scientific
discoveries that affect our lives? No. Not at all. Are there
no evangelical or ultra-orthodox Jewish doctors? Of course
there are, and apparently they are very comfortable learning
and practicing science.
Compared to the many irrational beliefs of secular, leftist
intellectuals -- good and evil exist even though there is no
God; male and female are interchangeable; international
institutions are the hope of mankind -- evangelical
irrational beliefs are utterly benign.
And in regards to same-sex marriage, why is the normative
Christian and Jewish belief that marriage should be between
a man and a woman anti-science and anti-intellectual? What
we have here is the usual left-wing tactic of smearing
opponents. If you disagree with race-based affirmative
action, you are a racist. If you disagree with the
ever-expanding welfare state, you lack compassion. If you
disagree with redefining marriage in the most radical way
ever attempted in history, you are a hater.
No wonder the left developed the foolish and destructive
self-esteem movement -- no one has anywhere near the
self-esteem leftists have. They are certain that they are
better human beings in every way than those who have the
temerity to oppose them.
This Jew will take the evangelicals' values and the
evangelicals' America over those of left-wing intellectuals'
any day of the year. If evangelicals come with some views I
find irrational, that's a tiny price to pay compared to the
price humanity has paid for the left's consistently broken
moral compass -- when it comes to America; Communism and
Islamism; superiority of peace studies over waging war
against evil; America's role in the world; Israel;
the welfare state; Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and all the
other left-wing dictators whom the left-wing has celebrated;
the belief that men and women are basically the same; the
greater worth of any animal than of the unborn human; and
nearly every other major moral issue.
If these professors typify the views of Eastern Nazarene,
which is officially listed as a Christian university, it is
reason for despair. Once left-wing values enter the
evangelical bloodstream, there is almost no hope for
America.
