Freethinking

I don't pay much attention to what the Atheists* are babbling about on the internet aside from scanning posts by PZ Myers and occasional other similar nincompoops for particularly egregious nincompoopery. But it has come to my attention that, apparently, some of them are using their freethinking, unfettered, rational brains to believe, probably based on lots of supporting evidence, that Obama is an atheist himself.

Now, this actually seems kind of likely to me, despite all of Obama's public religioning, because it's hard for me to believe that he cares about anything bigger than himself (except insofar as such things must be destroyed). I kind of doubt this is what the Atheists are saying, though I can't be sure because Myers doesn't actually link to anybody and I'm not about to go looking. It seems much more likely to me, though, that this is just more of that bizarre liberal projection that Obama still seems to enable (though thankfully not as strongly as he used to): "I'm an atheist, Obama is just like me but cooler, so he's probably an atheist too!"

Myers, to his credit, isn't buying it. He's not buying that weird D'Souza anti-colonialist thing, either (on the liberal response to which I hope to have more later). But let's see what he's selling instead.

Look, it's so much simpler. Obama is not a socialist or a communist or a Luo tribesman. He is a centrist politician from Chicago who believes in improving peoples lives incrementally by working step by step through political compromise. He pisses off the liberal, progressive wing of the Democratic party because we want him to be bold and aggressive, and he's not, and because he's also comfortable with the military-industrial status quo. He really annoys the wingnut right because he wants to move the country away from their dreams of a Reaganesque/Randian capitalist paradise, and he is…slowly and tentatively.

That's really all you need to know to comprehend what Obama is doing and how he works. It's sufficient to explain everything.

Mr. Myers, freethinker, scientist, man of reason who only believes what there is sufficient supporting evidence for: on what evidence are you basing your conclusion that Obama believes in improving peoples lives? Can you lay out your logic in connecting this with being comfortable with the military-industrial status quo? Please state for me the steps Obama is taking, slowly and tentatively even, to dismantle the capitalist paradise.

It's very, very simple. I don't believe in god, but even if I did, I could see it. Obama cares about himself. Obama is trying to amass power and wealth to himself. In order to further this goal, he is working to maintain and further empower the system which gave him the power he has now. Improving people's lives doesn't need to enter into it. Occam's razor, Mr. Myers.

Myers and his fellow Atheists say that religion is insanity, because it's believing in things without evidence. But at least it is possible to posit "god" on top of what we see, without denying what we actually do see. What Myers is doing is creating a fictional alternate reality that flies in the face of all logic and evidence. I'll take religion over that any day.

TANGENT It's funny to me that pretty much every mainstream reaction to Obama, positive and negative, involves assuming that he's "secretly" what you want him to be: a progressive**, a communist, an atheist, a Muslim, an anti-war reformer, an anti-colonialist tribesman; always with one of those whatever-dimensional chess games going on. I realize that our society is the society of the lie, of fiction, but this is so much more on the surface than usual. In a way it's kind of great, but in a much more powerful way it's just kind of terrifying.

*As opposed to people who don't believe in god but don't particularly care if you do.
**Whatever that is.