Thoughts On The RNC

Vice Presidents are sometimes very effective, sometimes not. Same way with Presidents. Abe Lincoln did not have much experience as commander in chief when he was elected. He did fine. So will Mr. Obama. So will Ms. Palin. I was awestruck that McCain people were so severely cynical as to state that issues were a no starter for the campaign; it rested solely on Mythology and who believed it. I mean, I write about stuff like that, but I am always amazed when I run into it. President Bush actually did some good things. I sense they were usually when he did not tell Cheney about them. For example, replacing Runsfeld with Gates. Unfortunately, the bad was grotesquely bad and needed a tourniquet, while the good was but a poultice. Sexual mores were certainly on display. The place positively dripped sex. However, I am always surprised at Christians who seem to be oblivious to the fact that the only sexual prohibtion in the New Testament is that against DIVORCE. Yet, we have a 2 time adulterer addressing the convention. He has been married 3 times. The history of the nominee himself will not be repeated here. It is well known and tawdry in the extreme. Of all the people who shone at the convention, Carol McCain, who was not even there, was most brilliant for what she did not say of John McCain. What can you make of people passionately devoted to a religion, yet ignoring the most basic tenets of it? I think the terrible conflict between the lives they live and their religion breeds monsters. I sense that Christian interest groups have taken over the party of Goldwater and Reagan. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. However...here's that bloody "however"...when the groups are in favor of teaching Creationism as a supplement to biological sciences in schools, you have a presence similar to that of Bishop James Ussher, who calculated the age of the Earth to be 5,000 years, give or take a aeon of elders or so. We have forgotten the place of education, in particular, free and compulsory education in Western culture. This type of education was to lead to the betterment of society through the new sciences, not to some sort of hodge-podge where one could learn physics or not, opting instead for Angelology! Truly Science can not answer all social ills, but the remedy is most probably living lives of holiness, not destructing science. Surely, though, could one expect a society of adulterers to live lives of exemplary holiness...sufficient to instill the young with a profound religiosity and respect for values, morals, and the word of God? I doubt it.