Jim Guinee wrote:
> > Paul Smith wrote:
> >
> > To his credit, when he announced the faith-based program office,
> > Bush explicitly said that the goal was to only promote
> > programs that had supporting empirical evidence. An interesting
contradiction,
>
> Why? What about a faith-based program that has demonstrated
> efficacy in solving a particular social problem (promoting abstinence to
> decrease std's and unwanted pregnancies)?
I don't think that you followed what contradiction I was referring
to. I DO believe that faith-based programs can empirically demonstrate
effectiveness (though my impression is that abstinence programs fall far
short of demonstrating that they can substitute for sex education as means
of reducing std's and unwanted pregnancies - see Paul Brandon's response).
The contradiction is between the faith basis and the need for empirical
demonstration. And of course I wouldn't want to make too much of that,
because I strongly suspect that if the hammer fell, it would be against the
empirical demonstration, not the faith basis. Suffice to say that within
ethical limits, I have no difficulty with the use of faith in social
programs (ala Rick Froman's response).
> > Of course, in practice is a vastly different matter, and
> > the religious fundamentalists have consistently shown themselves
> > completely unworthy of our trust. I do wish that someone would just
simply bring
> > that out into the open.
>
> Our trust? Who are you speaking for here?
>
> And what have the fundamentalists done to show themselves *completely
> untrustworthy*? For that matter, how they have shown themselves more
> untrustworthy than the government? Oh wait, that was the previous
> administration...
I'm talking, of course, about the Christian Coalition in all its
guises: the creationists, organized anti-abortionist groups, anti-Clinton
groups etc. If, after that clarification, you don't clearly see why I said
they're untrustworthy, then there really isn't any point in discussing this
point. We would have to disagree on facts and/or values so fundamental to
the discussion that progress in a discussion isn't at all likely. I fear
that may be an accurate description of the state of the world right now with
respect to ethics in general.
Paul Smith
Alverno College
Milwaukee
