Both science and religion have roles in our lives - let’s call them the physical and the metaphysical. Sometimes those roles work together, and sometimes they are discrete.
You would not, for example, decide while digging a trench with a shovel (physical) that it’s too much work, put down the shovel, and pray to God to finish the job for you. Those sorts of prayers are seldom answered. Praying for support and guidance with your digging task (metaphysical) is appropriate, especially if you finish the prayer with, “If it be thy will”, or some such closing.
Observation, testing, and experimenting - deductive reasoning - advance our knowledge of the physical world. The metaphysical world is more of a challenge. Church services, study, prayer, and meditation all help with our understanding, but as with all inductive reasoning, it requires a certain amount of assuming, or faith.
Bad things happen when these different logical approaches are misapplied. Some people use deductive reasoning to try to prove the existence of God, fail to do so, then offer that failure as proof of God’s nonexistence. Of course, the reasoning was deductive up to the point at which they make a huge inductive leap from “I can’t prove God” to “therefore, there is no God”.
Anyway, when it comes to the study of political science (note the term “science” in the topic description), the deductive approach is appropriate. It is true that much of the study involves theory and principle (inductive), but it is the application of those theories in the world that concern us as a practical matter (deductive).
When an inductive or religious approach to government is adopted, when our politics become our religion, we have a problem. It is at that point that we are no longer self corrective since the critical examination ceases, the faith is imbibed.
Our atheist friends are particularly susceptible to this error. Everyone, to one degree or another, possess a yearning to understand the meaning of life, the truth of being, or however one wishes to describe it. Theists who practice a formal religion have adopted a path for ordered learning through an assortment of practices. Our atheist friends, on the other hand, place that trust, or faith, in a political construct that promises heaven on earth - usually some form of communism or socialism.
The consequences of adopting one’s politics as one’s religion has its pitfalls, not the least of which is elevating politicians to the role of high priests or saviors. Doing so leads to disappointment in your savior for failing to save you, disappointment in your savior for failing to vanquish your enemies, frustration with your savior for saying one thing and doing another - you get the idea. At least you can comfort yourself with the knowledge that the anti-savior from the other party never did bring a plague of locusts with him….but he will if elected!
I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that our friends on the Left, as a group, have a significantly higher rate of atheism than those on the Right. They are, therefore, much more susceptible to the charm of mountebanks running for high office.
Barack Obama was a recent example of this phenomenon. In theory, he ran for the office of President of the United States of America. In fact, he ran as the Second Coming. Who can forget his saying, to wild applause, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America!” His job was actually to act as the chief executive (administrator) of the federal government, not to fundamentally transform the country into…what exactly?
In the good old days, the president was appointed by the United States Senate. That makes sense. The legislature has an interest in how well the executive administers their laws. In fact, having the president elected by the people, however indirectly, creates a conflicting incentive structure that interferes with his duties. The members of the legislature represent the will of the people, the president does not, nor should he. He is an administrator.
We see this playing out today. President Biden will spend billions of dollars buying votes by paying off student loans. This is a dictatorial act. The legislature is supposed to pass laws and “control the purse strings”, not the president. To make things worse, President Biden’s initial attempt to do this was challenged in court and the Supreme Court of the United States declared his attempt to do it is illegal. His response was to declare, “They blocked me, but they didn’t stop me!” What does that mean? Did Congress pass new legislation? Did Congress allocate the money? If not, then is he not usurping the authority of Congress and flouting a decision of the Supreme Court?
The reason so few people are outraged by this is because President Biden is the current High Priest of the Church of the Left Wing. As such, President Biden’s word supersedes the will of the people and their representatives, the law of the land as applied by the Supreme Court of the United States, and any other mouthpiece of the unwashed.
We should pray for those whose religion is their politics, that their hope and change may be realized in the Truth.
Ts Blue -
Thanks for your thoughtful response. I agree with your critiques. I should made it clear that, "usually some form of socialism or communism", was more of an observation than a logical argument. I'll see about doing a little editing to be more clear in that regard, -.
Interesting points but making the leap from non-believer to "usually some form of socialism or communism" is a clear logical fallacy. Popper's principle of falsification implies no conclusion other than the assertion of something that cannot be falsified cannot be demonstrated to be true. The one making an assertion is the one with the burden of proof. I cannot "prove" there is no god just as I cannot "prove" there are no pink elephants at the bottom of the ocean.
I can prove that socialism or communism are false while still not accepting the "belief" in god. Aquinas called this a category mistake.