2008 U.S. Presidential Campaign Discussion Thread 13: Victory Lap

[A_Wanderer]

it's a familiar feeling.

what would you have me do? it was never alright. am i going to vote for McCain? what else do you expect the gay community to do other than support politicians who at least mouth support? are we to support Republicans who sleep with the very people who'd cheer our social death? are we to support Republicans who've made their opposition to gay people the very center of their social policy?

it seems to me that the positions you've outlined above are easy to say when you, yourself, don't have to actually live them out. in the real world, we have to make choices. and we also know that we're going to get thrown under the bus because more work remains, and because unthinking religion holds a preposterously central place in the lives of many Americans.

so we deal with it. the best we can.

I never said you should vote for the worse evil, but spreading the contempt between both sides could be a nice start.

i agree with you here -- you're preaching to the choir. simply because i know why Obama chose Warren (it was shrewd and calculating) doesn't mean i support the decision. it means i'm able to hold more than one thought in my head at one time. i have never been comfortable with Obama's religiosity, but i also have to accept that a president has to have some pretense of religiosity to be elected. for chrissakes, go back and look at how much i mocked the Democratic "Faith Forum" silliness. but what else are we going to do? at least Obama's religious leanings are inclusive and empowering and generally non-exclusionary, and not the spiteful, hateful, white evangelical protestantism of GWB. though each man claims a strong spirituality and professes Christ as his savior, there are world's of difference between the kids of Christianity each practices.

GWB has justified his AIDS spending with faith, his public language is not the same as Buchanan or Falwell, and the more recent statements have been pretty damn middle of the road. Why is it that GWB playing up his faith for a base "spiteful, hateful, white evangelical protestantism", while Obama is inclusive, empowering and generally non-exclusionary (in spite of his pastors hip, down with whitey, rhetoric).

i'm every bit the secularist you are.

but, again, as i said earlier, "they" are not all the same.

I recognise that most Christians are middle of the road, I know there is a difference between a social conservative and someone who wants to drop walls on people, but that shouldn't matter when it comes to keeping religion out of politics.

It's not as though we were asked to contextualise Falwell, to understand where he came from and have some sympathy for his wretched genesis (like we were for Jeremiah Wright); why should Obama's religious pals be rationalised but George W. Bush's be open to derision?

i don't think this paragraph was aimed directly at me. but if it was, it missed the mark.

Not entirely.

what consensus position have i argued? i've said that i'm not interested in simply labeling people a bigot and that's that. that isn't productive. it's not consensus building -- that's the GCU position, one i am very clearly against. i just don't think we're well served by provoking people in the middle, and i think we are well served by engaging, say, a nathan1977, where as a diamond is probably best left to humor.

A consensus position would be getting evangelical leaders to a point where they can agree that gay marriage is alright for state sanction, and they won't mobilise their voters against it.

and the more we argue with those who are equipped with actual skills, and the more we watch them twist their arguments and strain for something resembling coherence and consistency, the more discredited they are to the mainstream.

that's always been the point.

This only actually works when their being challenged, gritting teeth while they are given backstage passes to a presidential inaugurations doesn't count.

Rick Warren is mainstream, recognising the pragmatic bipartisanship of Obama picking him doesn't challenge that at all.

 

[A_Wanderer]

do you read the gay marriage threads? who spends hours dealing with the opposition?

you're so eager to try to find elements of "the Left" excusing Obama's shortcomings -- in the same way in which "the Right" apologized for George Bush running the country into the ground, and they still do, "he kept us safe" revisionism and whatnot -- that it's clouding your ability to actually see what's going on in here.

are you now the new Deep? is now your mission to antagonize the Obama folk in here without actually closely reading what they post and going by media stereotypes and using what you wish they said because it better fits whatever zingers you've been plotting?

But who else is there to antagonise?

FYM Republicans can be counted on one hand, and I already go after them in god-bothering threads, and gay rights threads for that matter.

Deep actually voiced his opinion even when it annoyed the majority of posters, he was treated like a racist right wing death beast because he was cold towards the change candidate. He took the most measured attitude, and ended up voting for Obama, without dabbling in hagiography along the way.

I know you don't believe Obama to be a faultless man-god, and that you have reasonable reasons not to be fickle about your politics, but that doesn't make the US president palling around with perfidious pastors alright to me.

Look at Australia, we booted out Howard and brought in Kevin Rudd; and his social positions are more or less the same; he injects his Christian faith into policy decisions and the party is aggressively pursuing conservative policies like an internet porn filter. More and more I feel that arguing the moderate and conciliatory position only lets the other side steal the middle ground.

 

[Bono's shades]

I don't think Obama has to entirely shun Warren and other promiment people with bigoted views. I just think having someone like him give the invocation is going too far. It sends the wrong message. Talk with them, engage with them - that's not a bad thing. But why spit in the face of the gay community by having him speak at such a huge, historic moment?

 

[anitram]

but, again, as i said earlier, "they" are not all the same.

That's true.

I don't think Jim Wallis is one of "them."

I guess the difference between us is that I don't believe Warren is really different, he's just managed to cloak himself in some nouveau evangelical style. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, just repackaged to be a little more palatable.

Look, I don't even understand why you need preachers at these things, I have no idea if we have them in Canada at equivalent events, then again I can't name a single influential Canadian preacher anyway. Does such a thing even exist? BUT I understand that the US is culturally different so OK, have your preachers at the inauguration. So while I wouldn't want Jim Wallis there in principle either, I guarantee if he were the choice, you wouldn't hear the protests this loudly.

 

[A_Wanderer]

I would accept John Shelby Spong.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

No one said smoking was "cool" all of a sudden

I just think the pictures are great, it's fun to see a President like that. Just like this is fun

Jaysus..let's just have some holiday FUN. Nitpicking moratorium..

 

[Irvine511]

GWB has justified his AIDS spending with faith, his public language is not the same as Buchanan or Falwell, and the more recent statements have been pretty damn middle of the road. Why is it that GWB playing up his faith for a base "spiteful, hateful, white evangelical protestantism", while Obama is inclusive, empowering and generally non-exclusionary (in spite of his pastors hip, down with whitey, rhetoric).I recognise that most Christians are middle of the road, I know there is a difference between a social conservative and someone who wants to drop walls on people, but that shouldn't matter when it comes to keeping religion out of politics.

herein lies the point. religion motivates some to do good things. Bush 'n AIDS is a great example. the fact that Wallis and, yes, Warren are moved to act on AIDS is something that Falwell and Robertson and Dobson would never have done. there is a difference there. sure, they're far more sympathetic to heterosexual AIDS, but is this not progress? do we not acknowledge the baby steps the religious right are making as they adjust to the modernity that the rest of us really have very little problem with?

the flip side of this, of course, is like the flip side of religion itself -- my god is better than your god. this gets translated into "my sexual intercourse is holy and yours is an abomination." and so on and so forth. and this is, sadly, a more powerful motivator than the "Save Darfur" impulse. so that's what Bush & Co. used to mobilize their base, who, like most people, respond much more quickly to fear and loathing than anything else.

what we have to do is deal with the fact that there are religious people out there, they outnumber us, and we have to deal with them while at the same time remaining absolutely steadfast in maintaining the walls that have always separated church and state. i don't see where i've not done this. if perhaps i am harsher on Bush's religiosity than Obama's religiosity it's for two reasons -- 1) i don't find Obama's lefty Christianism any sort of threat to my personal welfare or rights, and 2) it seems to express itself in ways that are far less interested in social control -- the difference between, say, Christians who want to save the rainforests because they are part of God's beautiful earth, and the Christians who want to make sure i don't see any of that nasty pornography. i find a gulf of difference there, and to me it is the difference between "a religious person in politics" vs. "religious politics." one pushes a policy that might come from a religious place vs. one creates a policy to advance a specific tenet of one's religion. a great example is civil marriage equality.

This only actually works when their being challenged, gritting teeth while they are given backstage passes to a presidential inaugurations doesn't count.

i agree. i don't know what else i'm supposed to do. i'm not excusing this. i've said i don't like it, particularly on the heels of Prop. 8. i've also tried to understand why Obama did this.

Rick Warren is mainstream, recognising the pragmatic bipartisanship of Obama picking him doesn't challenge that at all.

and i'd rather Warren to Fallwell/Robertson/Dobson. but i'd rather Wallis to Warren. though i'd rather no one at all.

but i understand that i'm outvoted when it comes to this stuff.

but, hey, i like modernity.

 

[Irvine511]

this is what i'm more worried about than Rev. Rick.

this is what matters.

and this makes me embarrassed to be an American.

In a First, Gay Rights Are Pressed at the U.N.
By NEIL MACFARQUHAR

UNITED NATIONS — An unprecedented declaration seeking to decriminalize homosexuality won the support of 66 countries in the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, but opponents criticized it as an attempt to legitimize pedophilia and other “deplorable acts.”

The United States refused to support the nonbinding measure, as did Russia, China, the Roman Catholic Church and members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. The Holy See’s observer mission issued a statement saying that the declaration “challenges existing human rights norms.”

The declaration, sponsored by France with broad support in Europe and Latin America, condemned human rights violations based on homophobia, saying such measures run counter to the universal declaration of human rights.

“How can we tolerate the fact that people are stoned, hanged, decapitated and tortured only because of their sexual orientation?” said Rama Yade, the French state secretary for human rights, noting that homosexuality is banned in nearly 80 countries and subject to the death penalty in at least six.

France decided to use the format of a declaration because it did not have the support for an official resolution. Read out by Ambassador Jorge Argüello of Argentina, the declaration was the first on gay rights read in the 192-member General Assembly itself.

Although laws against homosexuality are concentrated in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, more than one speaker addressing a separate conference on the declaration noted that the laws stemmed as much from the British colonial past as from religion or tradition.

Navanethem Pillay, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, speaking by video telephone, said that just like apartheid laws that criminalized sexual relations between different races, laws against homosexuality “are increasingly becoming recognized as anachronistic and as inconsistent both with international law and with traditional values of dignity, inclusion and respect for all.”

The opposing statement read in the General Assembly, supported by nearly 60 nations, rejected the idea that sexual orientation was a matter of genetic coding. The statement, led by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, said the effort threatened to undermine the international framework of human rights by trying to normalize pedophilia, among other acts.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference also failed in a last-minute attempt to alter a formal resolution that Sweden sponsored condemning summary executions. It sought to have the words “sexual orientation” deleted as one of the central reasons for such killings.

Ms. Yade and the Dutch foreign minister, Maxime Verhagen, said at a news conference that they were “disappointed” that the United States failed to support the declaration. Human rights activists went further. “The Bush administration is trying to come up with Christmas presents for the religious right so it will be remembered,” said Scott Long, a director at Human Rights Watch.

The official American position was based on highly technical legal grounds. The text, by using terminology like “without distinction of any kind,” was too broad because it might be interpreted as an attempt by the federal government to override states’ rights on issues like gay marriage, American diplomats and legal experts said.

“We are opposed to any discrimination, legally or politically, but the nature of our federal system prevents us from undertaking commitments and engagements where federal authorities don’t have jurisdiction,” said Alejandro D. Wolff, the deputy permanent representative.

Gay-rights advocates brought to the conference from around the world by France said just having the taboo broken on discussing the topic at the United Nations would aid their battles at home. “People in Africa can have hope that someone is speaking for them,” said the Rev. Jide Macaulay of Nigeria.

this might need it's own thread.

 

[anitram]

Nice company your country is keeping.

 

[Irvine511]

Nice company your country is keeping.

and the christianist and the muslimists think they have nothing in common ...

 

[A_Wanderer]

Obama continuing the horrible faith based initiatives solidifies them as the status quo, if he keeps them around for two terms they will be a permanent part of the political landscape. It may be that there are some prohibitions against proselytisation in the contracts; but I would have a problem with my tax dollars being used to funnel money to religious groups that support the ruling party, effectively mobilising religious blocs.

When it is George W. Bush injecting faith in politics people rightly howl, now Obama is doing it they either fall silent or insist that it makes him shrewd. Irvine, I don't think that you are objective when it comes to the president-elect (nor should you be, or anyone for that matter); the nature of your posts since the primaries have sometimes seemed like talking points to me, projecting the image of Obama as the deeply reflective pragmatic liberal who compromises some minor positions in the short term to actualise the important changes once he leaves the gates.

My position is that religious belief is ultimately justified by supernaturalism, that it makes claims about the universe and morality which aren't substantiated, and that it shouldn't be a guiding hand on public policy. The pragmatic lying of George Bush about his religious convictions, and his use of ambiguously prophetic language, are some of the worst parts of his character. I feel the same towards Obama and his Christian base. His public declarations about the power of faith come across to me as an atheist or agnostic (not a bad thing) who has co-opted a religious base in Chicago and has integrated the same types of principles into his public policy (outsourcing charity to religious groups). The man may respect the first amendment, make wonderful appointments (see energy secretary), and begin to undo some of the damage wrought by Bush, but I don't think it is right for him to bring religious leaders into the fold and to offer them olive branches at the expense of your secularism.

 

[anitram]

Obama continuing the horrible faith based initiatives solidifies them as the status quo, if he keeps them around for two terms they will be a permanent part of the political landscape. It may be that there are some prohibitions against proselytisation in the contracts; but I would have a problem with my tax dollars being used to funnel money to religious groups that support the ruling party, effectively mobilising religious blocs.

In an economic downturn you'll only see more of it.

There is a reasonable argument to be made for employing these services as far as the costs are concerned. They tend to be able to deliver certain services very cheaply and efficiently because they have a history of doing so.

Interestingly before Quebec's Quiet Revolution, the Church was funneled a lot of money by the government, thus becoming a co-oppressor, which eventually saw Quebeckers turn almost wholly secular in response. But one of the reasons the corrupt governing of Duplessis continued for so long is because they managed to keep their budget down to nothing since the Church delivered almost all essential services to the citizenry. This, of course, is a huge political issue as you point out. But I do wonder how much we will start to rely on faith-based initiatives in a depression, and what the longterm consequences of that will be. I do blame the conservative parties for this largely because they tend to ally with the religious right and because they are responsible for stripping social services funding to such a degree that faith-based initiatives actually become almost necessary alternatives.

 

[financeguy]

Kucinch would not have invited a homophobe to give a speech.

 

[financeguy]

Also, this guy Warren is a complete charlatan. I can smell the bullshit a mile off.

I predict, within the next three years he will either be done for sexual or financial impropriety.

 

[deep]

Also, this guy Warren is a complete charlatan. I can smell the bullshit a mile off.

I predict, within the next three years he will either be done for sexual or financial impropriety.

I am not sure he will be undone.

but, a couple of years back, when everyone was just gushing about his "Purpose Driven Life " book I gave it a quick once over. and reading between the lines, I saw him for what he was then.

 

[anitram]

I am not sure he will be undone.

but, a couple of years back, when everyone was just gushing about his "Purpose Driven Life " book I gave it a quick once over. and reading between the lines, I saw him for what he was then.

I was actually struck by the transparency of that book as well.

My Mom passed it on to me, and I thought she'd be more susceptible to the code language he used. She wasn't, thankfully. But he's still sold millions of copies so people are buying it hook, line and sinker.

 

[dazzledbylight]

and the christianist and the muslimists think they have nothing in common ...

I don't like ANY Fundalmentalist wing of any Religion.

I knew that by the time i was around 10 yrs old because of things i read/heard.

I'm sorry, Irving.

I expect on the part of Pres-elect Obama's actions/non-actions to feel good/ feel disusted-horrified (but HOPEFULLY the way smallist %) and elated.

I sort of understand why he's doing it - check out Thom Hartman's piece on it- but I still feel yucky about it.


And as a feminist..... I/we pick our battles too, Irving.

 

[deep]

.

Barack Obama knows liberals are upset he picked the conservative evangelical preacher to pray at the inauguration. And he doesn't care.

By Mike Madden

Dec. 19, 2008

For more than two years, cozying up to Rick Warren has been one of Barack Obama's favorite ways of showing evangelical Christians that he might not be so scary, after all -- and for just as long, palling around with Obama every once in a while has been Warren's way of trying to show more secular-minded people that he's not so bad, either.

So about the only thing less surprising than the outrage that news of Warren's selection to give the invocation at Obama's inauguration is prompting among gay activists, liberals and Obama supporters generally is probably Warren's appearance on the program in the first place. Obama and Warren have often used each other to demonstrate that they'll be willing to listen to people they disagree with -- and yes, also to let everyone know that they'll be willing to anger their friends. This isn't one of those political controversies that pop up out of nowhere without warning; whether they want to admit it or not, it seems Obama's advisors brought on this fight with his own supporters knowing full well what was coming.

Having Warren speak at the inauguration might make more sense for Obama, now that he's been elected, than going to Warren's Saddleback Civil Forum in August in search of evangelical votes did from a campaigning standpoint. When the ballots were counted he only did marginally better among white evangelicals than Gore and Kerry; the idea now, apparently, is to signal that Obama will be a president for all Americans, whether they voted for him on Nov. 4 or not.

Except that Warren, by this point, isn't just the purpose-driven friendly face of evangelical Christianity anymore. He took sides, very publicly, in favor of California's Proposition 8, which overturned the state's gay marriage law. "About 2 percent of Americans are homosexual, or gay and lesbian, people," Warren said in a widely circulated video (and in a virtually identical e-mail to his congregation) before the election. "We should not let 2 percent of the population determine to change a definition of marriage that has been supported by every single culture and every single religion for 5,000 years. This is not just a Christian issue, this is a humanitarian issue." Prior to that, his late summer Civil Forum, at which he interviewed McCain and Obama, was seen by many liberals as an ambush. Instead of sticking to questions on areas where Warren truly has broken from some religious conservatives, like climate change, the importance of alleviating poverty and preventing HIV transmission, Warren drew Obama and John McCain into a discussion of old-school social conservative hot-button issues: the definition of marriage and whether life begins at conception. Days later, he turned around and blasted Obama's answers on abortion rights, comparing being pro-choice to denying the Holocaust.

But Obama was determined to defend his pick Thursday, and he set out the pro-Warren talking points himself, when a reporter brought it up at his now all-but-daily press conference in Chicago. "A couple of years ago, I was invited to Rick Warren's church to speak, despite his awareness that I held views that were entirely contrary to his when it came to gay and lesbian rights, when it came to issues like abortion," he said. "Nevertheless, I had an opportunity to speak. And that dialogue, I think, is part of what my campaign's been all about -- that we're not going to agree on every single issue, but what we have to do is to be able to create an atmosphere where we can disagree without being disagreeable and then focus on those things that we hold in common as Americans."

Translated out of press-conference-speak, though, that basically means: "I know you're upset. Too bad."

 

[martha]

Translated out of press-conference-speak, though, that basically means: "I know you're upset. Too bad."

Or "Now that you voted for me, fuck off."

 

[Zoomerang96]

american politics is hysterical.
maybe canada is different afterall.
differing views always leads to one end being referred to as a bigot and the other elitist liberal.
mother britain should have done more to prevent the revolution, it would seem.

 

[deep]

Pastor Rick Warren addresses Muslim group, emphasizes need to find common ground

The evangelical Christian, who will give the invocation at Obama's inauguration, is the keynote speaker at convention in Long Beach.
By Raja Abdulrahim

December 21, 2008

Fresh from being tapped to deliver the invocation at President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration, Orange County Pastor Rick Warren spoke Saturday night to about 800 members of the Muslim Public Affairs Council at its convention in Long Beach.

Warren's theme was about people getting along, forgetting their differences and focusing on areas of agreement. The audience cheered him, and many people rose to their feet.

Among the first to stand was singer Melissa Etheridge, a lesbian, who performed for the audience.

Recognizing the potential for controversy, Warren said near the beginning of his speech: "Let me just get this over very quickly. I love Muslims. And for the media's purpose, I happen to love gays and straights."

He said people ask him what he prays for when it comes to Obama. "I pray for the president the same things I pray for myself: integrity, humility and compassion," he said.

A council spokeswoman acknowledged that some members objected to the choice of the evangelical pastor as the keynote speaker.

"We're always looking to work with unlikely partners, and I think he's a new kind of evangelical," said spokeswoman Edina Lekovic. "We have a lot in common."

Warren, like many Muslims, opposes abortion and same-sex marriage. Lekovic said he was introduced to the council by Orange County Muslim leaders who held an interfaith picnic with his congregation.

Obama last week chose Warren, who heads Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, to deliver the invocation at next month's inauguration.

The action angered gay and lesbian rights groups because Warren supported Proposition 8, the gay marriage ban that California voters passed in November.

Obama and the conservative white pastor have often found common ground. After meeting in Washington in January 2006, they began speaking regularly by phone.

While writing his best-selling book "The Audacity of Hope," Obama asked Warren, author of the 2002 bestseller "The Purpose Driven Life," to review the chapter on faith.

Warren also served as part of a "prayer circle" of supportive clergy leaders during Obama's presidential campaign.

It appears Obama and Warren have had a mutual benefit relationship for some time.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Well good for Melissa Etheridge, I'd say that's very generous of her

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Christmas vaca

 

[maycocksean]

and the christianist and the muslimists think they have nothing in common ...

And the atheists. Note China's one of the opponents too. Religion is a convenient cloak for homophobia and a convenient scapegoat for those who want to find a reason for homophobia.

But prejudice runs deeper than religion.

 

[deep]

the difference is that atheists that are bigots are honest enough to stand up for thier own beliefs

 

[BVS]

the difference is that atheists that are bigots are honest enough to stand up for thier own beliefs

I don't find that to be true at all, especially in here...

 

[deep]

I am not an atheist
I guess I am agnostic

whatever bias' I have
I can not hide behind beliefs such as:
, unless you believe as me you are going to hell,
this or that personal behavior is a sin and you will be punished,
that is wrong , because it is written in a scripture.

I believe there is right / proper behavior
and the is wrong/ improper behavior,
my beliefs are based on my perceptions in the real world, with no consideration for some 'so-called' after-life.

 

[A_Wanderer]

I don't find that to be true at all, especially in here...

I stand up for my beliefs, which are built on fundamental assumptions about the nature of the world (one, that it is a substrate which manifests matter, energy and information without an intelligent overseer; two, that our understanding about the world must be justified, or in principle justifiable). My bigotry is limited to thinking that ideas are not inherently worthy of respect and should, or must, be critically evaluated; that goes does for my own thoughts which I try to constantly revise when new knowledge comes to light. For instance I don't always take the time to stipulate that the there is a possibility of an intelligent God, however remote, I hold a type of agnosticism - how many believers operate under the assumption that there is a possibility that God doesn't might not exist?

You've made the charge of scientism against me numerous times, I think its a silly argument; valuing freedom of argument and freedom of inquiry, without a censor, isn't a bad thing. Looking at the blind, mechanical process of design through evolution without turning back at the last moment and saying "God did it", at the point where God becomes superfluous, and undoing the powerful explanatory role of the theory isn't scientific bigotry; its common sense. And before thinking it cold, or heartless, just try to comprehend the beauty of knowing how things happen: that when you hold a rock you can know when and how it formed, or hold a fossil and unwind deep time to imagine a living creature living on some far flung earth. We can indulge the spiritual, and the numinous, to have big ideas, without deferring to traditions of revelation. It would be no stretch of the imagination to label that sort of spiritualism a form of pantheism, although I think that atheism for all its negative connotations can (but doesn't necessarily) encompass that wonder.

 

[BVS]

I stand up for my beliefs, and my bigotry is limited to thinking that ideas are not inherently worthy of respect and should, or must, be critically evaluated; that goes does for my own thoughts which I try to constantly revise when new knowledge comes to light. For instance I don't always take the time to stipulate that the there is a possibility of an intelligent God, however remote, I hold a type of agnosticism - how many believers operate under the assumption that there is a possibility that God doesn't might not exist?

You've made the charge of scientism against me numerous times, I think its a silly argument; valuing freedom of argument and freedom of inquiry, without a censor, isn't a bad thing. Looking at the blind, mechanical process of design through evolution without turning back at the last moment and saying "God did it", at the point where God becomes superfluous, and undoing the powerful explanatory role of the theory isn't scientific bigotry; its common sense.

Honestly, I wasn't thinking of you or Deep, when I made that statement. In fact the two of you were the first exceptions that popped into my head.

I'm not sure what you are talking about when you say I have charged you of scientism, but I'd be interested in seeing what you are talking about...

 

[A_Wanderer]

Scientism is the idea that only science can explain anything; that by claiming that everything is reducible to a scientific explanation (thoughts are the product of brains, which are the product of biology, which is the product of physics...) then entire levels of knowledge are fully ignored (history, culture, philosophy etc.).

I feel that when you have declared my convictions to be a type of scientific fundamentalism this is implied. I don't think its true because I see the humanities as valuable, for their own sake, while everything from art to my sense of self may in fact be the products of physics it doesn't deny the sense of aesthetic or importance of other fields to make sense of existence.