Are we allowed to question the irrational beliefs of political candidates?



This is probably going to be one of those posts that I make, regret, and later take down. However, in my defense, I wrote this one dead sober.

This morning an editorial from Washington Post editorialist David Ignatius appeared in my copy of the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

It is an absolutely excellent editorial and I was really thrilled to see it in print. In his article Mr. Ignatius argues how absolutely appalled the founding fathers of our country would be to see the degree to which religion has been infused into our political debate.

As I said, it is an excellent editorial and I strongly encourage you to read it here.

I wanted to tell Mr. Ignatius how much I enjoyed his editorial so I wrote him an email. I told him that as pleased as I was to hear his message that, frankly, I feel that whenever someone raises this topic it generally falls on deaf ears; at least on anyone who doesn't already agree with that view to begin with.

As I was writing the email it occurred to me that I was sending a message to an open minded free thinker who was also a member of the press. It raised another question in my mind that I have been pondering a lot about lately.

The question is this. Does the press have a responsibility to question how rational a politician is, especially one who is running for high office? Apparently, if the irrational belief is based on the politicians religious views then the answer is unequivocally a big "NO".

To quote the reply I received from Mr. Ignatius exactly he wrote this:

Dear Mr. Ratcliff:

You are right in saying that we do in the news media not delve into the details of people's religious faith. I think that's as it should be.

Thanks for writing to me.

David Ignatius



So, it works like this: If a politician, let's say a guy named Dennis Kucinich, says he saw a UFO then you can pretty much treat him like an insane lunatic in the press (even though he may, in fact, have actually seen a UFO.)

Now, let's take for example a politician named Mitt Romney. Now, he believes that an Angel came and spoke to a guy named Joesph Smith and this angel handed him some magic golden plates, written in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics that, strangely, contained word for word verbatim passages from the King James Version of the Holy Bible.

Now, that..that..you can't say anything about.. even though this is a guy running for a job that does, if I understand things correctly, require some pretty serious critical thinking skills.

Oh well, I will never figure this thing out...

Comments

Greg M said…
I thought Freemasons were supposed to be tolerant to the beliefs of others, as long as there was a core belief of a supreme being or God of some sort. Am I wrong?
No Greg, you are not wrong. My question was about the duty of the press.

At a personal level, even though I am trying to be tolerant of the beliefs of others I sometimes become concerned when their beliefs aren't tolerant of me.

For example, putting a bunch of graduates from obscure religious Universities into the Department of Justice (as has happened these past 8 years under Bush) has real and serious ramifications on all of us.

So, while we are not allowed to discuss the rational thought processes or judgment of *any* of these people because it is based on their 'faith', meanwhile they get to employ irrational thought to the laws which affect us all.

The power in the hands of an evangelical President has already been demonstrated to have chilling affects on the rest of the population.

So, yes, I think this still a topic we need to find a way to talk about.

John
Anonymous said…
It was funny, up until the point when we developed nuclear weapons and other WMDs that make the God of the Old Testament look like a second-string lunchroom bully. We could ignore the topic in polite conversation until that point.

Now, the question of what underlies human morality is a responsibility that all members of a free society need to take seriously.

If a particular church or fraternal organization discourages objective consideration of this issue, then I'd (not-so-)respectfully question that organization's utility to society, going forward.
Anonymous said…
What about candidates who think that somebody named Jesus walked on water and resurrected dead people ? Or that the earth was created thousand years ago in seven days ?

They're pretty much all equal in my books..

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