Says "I have thoughts." Watch the whole thing, but focus on the 45 second mark for the previous quote.
Now before some of you get your panties in a wad, note this is not a dig on religion in general or christianity. It is a dig on a specific version of christianity in this country (if you follow this version, go ahead and wad up your panties now). I am not opposed to faith overall. Hell, I have faith. I have faith that most people won't act like psychopaths, I have faith you won't change lanes into my car while driving. However, this faith is based on experience. I have faith in other things as well, if you tell me you have the simple cure to some medical problem that the AMA doesn't want me to know about, I have faith you are an asshole, idiot, or both. If you tell me some product you are selling is safe, despite all these medical reports, I have faith you are more concerned with the health of your stockholders wallets and not my health. Again faith based on experience. I freely admit I could be wrong, but 9 times out of 10 I bet I'm right.
That being said I am concerned with "faith" as it is currently being bandied around. "Faith" these days means, to me, a belief in a fundamentalist version of evangelical christianity (FVEC). The nice thing about this version is that normal christian practitioners (of which I believe represent most christians) won't contradict it. When a FVEC says their faith tells them abstinence only education is the moral course, what christian is comfortable saying "I think your faith is wrong," when the data says abstinence only education is a failed policy.
Mostly my concern is all the talk by the presidential candidates on both sides about their faith. I care not-a-whit about your beliefs in the supernatural. Actually, to hear them talk about it scares the shit out of me. These people will have the potential to affect my life, and the lives of my family, in profound ways, I don't want to hear about their favorite fucking ghost story and how it may guide their decisions. I want to hear about their policies, how and why they came to have them, how they plan to support them, and what these policies mean to all the people of the US, not just the specific sub-set that hails from the same regional denomination. I want to know what it would take for a leader to abandon a policy. I want the next leader to think with their head and let their guts focus on digestion and not thinking. I want our leaders to make the best possible decisions using the information they have available and let them have faith in the fact they are doing the best they can.
Hit tip to Pharyngula
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