Monday, May 18, 2009

Obama: "Doubt Causes Faith!"


Obama spoke at the Notre Dame commencement yesterday, and despite predictions from some "pro-lifers," was not struck by lightning. By most accounts he gave an excellent speech. I'll leave the abortion topic for others to deconstruct, but I want to touch on another topic he covered.

"In this world of competing claims about what is right and what is true, have confidence in the values with which you’ve been raised and educated. Be unafraid to speak your mind when those values are at stake. Hold firm to your faith and allow it to guide you on your journey. Stand as a lighthouse.

But remember too that the ultimate irony of faith is that it necessarily admits doubt. It is the belief in things not seen. It is beyond our capacity as human beings to know with certainty what God has planned for us or what He asks of us, and those of us who believe must trust that His wisdom is greater than our own.

This doubt should not push us away from our faith. But it should humble us. It should temper our passions, and cause us to be wary of self-righteousness. It should compel us to remain open, and curious, and eager to continue the moral and spiritual debate that began for so many of you within the walls of Notre Dame. And within our vast democracy, this doubt should remind us to persuade through reason, through an appeal whenever we can to universal rather than parochial principles, and most of all through an abiding example of good works, charity, kindness, and service that moves hearts and minds.
"

ARRRRRGHHHHH! This is so frustrating. Here is one of the most intelligent people on earth, in front of a crowd of future leaders, taking a few minutes to encourage belief in things that can't be observed or proven! Is this responsible behavior?

Does this work in any realm other than religion. If I'm lucky enough to one day give a commencement address, is it acceptable for me to spend time talking about holding true to belief in resquartervantites? After all, there is no proof for the existence of resquartervantites, you can't see them, they don't actually communicate with you, but if you just close your eyes, click your heels three times, and believe hard enough they can help you to do all kinds of good things. Forget acceptable, would it even be responsible?

Come on Mr. President, doubt shouldn't push us away from faith?! People doubt because there is no evidence supporting claims of faith. I certainly hope you don't use this kind of logic in making foreign policy decisions.

"I kind of doubt that the Iranians have done away with that nuclear weapons program. But you know what, doubt really shouldn't interfere with my faith that they have. No further action required."

I hope he doesn't actually believe this hoooey, and it's all just a show for the believer electorate. While I'm not normally comforted by politicians lying, that scenario just seems more palatable than the idea that the leader of the most powerful country on earth believes in an imaginary sky friend.

7 comments:

  1. This post cracks me up. This is exactly what we heard from him the whole campaign. Then he goes to Notre Dame (to help with his "Catholic problem") tells the kids what they want to hear, and your response is Argh (witha Charlie-Brown-like 9 extra letters and an exclamation point)? This man is a politician first and foremost. But he's also a believer. Like the Roman Catholic Dennis Kucinich.

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  2. I read it a totally different way:

    This doubt should not push us away from our faith. But it should humble us. It should temper our passions, and cause us to be wary of self-righteousness. It should compel us to remain open, and curious, and eager to continue the moral and spiritual debate that began for so many of you within the walls of Notre Dame. And within our vast democracy, this doubt should remind us to persuade through reason, through an appeal whenever we can to universal rather than parochial principles, and most of all through an abiding example of good works, charity, kindness, and service that moves hearts and minds."

    Isn't he saying we should be intellectually curious and apply reason. He believes in God but he seems to understand he doesn't know everything and acknowledges that other rational points of view exist. He didn't get up there and say "I want to thank Jesus Christ for allowing me to speak here today I know he has a busy schedule."

    Dave

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  3. Few thoughts on above comments.

    1. Telling the people what they want to hear is a good thing? Sure he's a believer, and he's said that on the campaign trail, my point here is that's not a good thing. (Love the Charlie Brown reference!)

    2. When have I ever said Kucinich's Catholicism, or belief in UFO's, or some of the other crazy crap he believes is a good thing?

    3. Yes - Obama couches this as a call to intellectual curiosity - but intellectual curiosity is at odds with faith. Faith requires adherence to a preset world view despite what evidence shows. Intellectual curiosity follows the evidence where it leads. There is a trend in modern liberal christianity toward the idea that faith and curiosity can co-exist - eventually any faith that's more than lip service will require the believer to stiffle curiosity though.

    The idea that doubt should not push us away from faith is a "black is white - war is peace" kind of proposition."

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  4. No one is saying telling people what they want to hear is a good thing, just a predictible thing which makes your level of frustration comedic. And I think it's a mistake to say that faith requires adherence to a preset world view. "faith" is not a monolithic thing. Just as I can have faith that man is inherently good but still lock my front door; Obama can have faith that world leaders are worth the trust of having a dialog with them, but that doesn't mean closing his eyes to the realities of the world.

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  5. Doubt is not entirely inconsistent with faith. You can have doubt about how the world was created and why we are here but still believe in something more than us. Admittedly you don't know the answers but still have a belief in something you can't see. When faith blindly excludes all doubt like I will pray for my dying daughter and not get her medical care....then we have a problem.

    Dave

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  6. This is from John Dickserson's Slate Article: How Obama is Like Spock. I think it makes a good argument that faith or not, Obama's default is to open mindedness, not the type of closed mind you rail against, Bill.

    "And in Sunday's commencement address at Notre Dame, the most religious speech of his presidency, the president recalled his exchange with a pro-life doctor who had taken issue with a passage on Obama's campaign Web site that criticized "right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman's right to choose." The doctor said that no fair-minded person could simply dismiss all opponents on the other side of the argument as mere ideologues. "After I read the doctor's letter, I wrote back to him and I thanked him," said Obama. "And I didn't change my underlying position, but I did tell my staff to change the words on my Web site. And I said a prayer that night that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me. Because when we do that—when we open up our hearts and our minds to those who may not think precisely like we do or believe precisely what we believe—that's when we discover at least the possibility of common ground."

    This is not Bill Clinton's "I feel your pain." Rather, it's "I see your point of view." For Obama, empathy has long been the key to delivering the change in the political structure that he talks so much about (and that he undermines when he resorts to straw-man arguments). Here's how he explained this approach as it applies to his decision-making: "[Opponents] might not, at the end of it, agree with me, but having seen how I'm thinking about a problem, having a sense of how I'm making decisions, that I understand their point of view, that I can actually make their argument for them, and that that's part of the decision-making process, it gives them a sense, at least, that they've been heard, and … it pushes us away from the dogmas and caricatures that I think get in the way of good policymaking and a more civil tone in our politics." "
    What do you think?

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  7. @Anon, May 19, 12:23 PM

    "...that I understand their point of view, that I can actually make their argument for them..."

    Give me a break. Of COURSE he's able to argue the other side. He's an attorney. We're trained to do that and it doesn't affect whether or not we agree with an argument. For example, I can argue my wife's political beliefs as well as she can, but I don't agree with her at all. If that ability makes people more apt to go along with what he does then good for him, but it doesn't mean that it impacts his decision making process. Seeing someone's point of view might be a good quality if he's actually open-minded about that point of view. But if he's not, then it's really just a way to get people to like him. For example, he wasn't open to agreeing with that doctor about abortion, but only about the potentially inflammatory language on the website.

    While empathy might be a good way to connect with people, it doesn't make you a better decision maker. If anything, empathy hinders the rational decision making process. It encourages us to consider people's feelings rather than the facts. I'm not arguing that empathy has no place in politics or decision making. I'm simply saying that if we're interested in getting decisions that are logical and well-reasoned, then empathy has little or no role in the process. It might make people feel better in the short run, but it doesn't mean that he'll make the decision that's better for the long run.

    Now, consider the fact that he's encouraging people to make decisions based on their feelings about god(s) and to have faith in something for which there is no credible factual evidence. Is that really something we want to encourage? Definitely not. Bill hit the nail right on the head with his post. If I spoke at a commencement ceremony and encouraged people to have faith in the invisible pink unicorn, people would say I'm crazy. Pres. Obama did the exact same thing, except it was about the Christian god instead of the invisible pink unicorn.

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