The Divine Conspiracy Blog

David Paul Kuhn: The Enduring Mommy-Daddy Political Divide.

Tufts University psychologists showed people headshots of white Democrats and Republicans. Participants guessed the political affiliation significantly above chance, about 55 to 60 percent. That’s better than the house advantage in blackjack. The key difference? The study, published this January, found that Democrats projected “warmth” and Republicans projected “power.”

This contrast between “warmth” and “power” characterizes our politics. The health care debate appears mired in innumerable details. But it has always concerned a far deeper debate over two competing ideas of government – to nurture or to safeguard. The dynamic is so intimately familiar to us because it is conventionally familial. The health care clash, like American politics, remains rooted in our mommy and daddy parties.

Read more here.

Burt Prelutsky lists a few good reasons to despise liberals.

When it comes to politicians in general, it’s extremely difficult to avoid using obscenities. In fact, when it comes to left-wing politicians, I find it takes every last bit of will power I possess. Really, aside from those occasions when I’m cut off in traffic by some yutz who’s busy texting or twittering or when I commit an unforced error on the tennis court, I’m not given to cursing. But five minutes of liberal blather and I find myself turning into a reincarnated George Carlin.

My problem with left-wingers isn’t simply that I believe they’re wrong about everything, but that they’re such blatant hypocrites. They not only don’t say what they mean, but even in the face of objective evidence, they will deny having said what they said and will never admit they made a mistake. What’s more, they will condemn conservatives for having done and said what they, themselves, said and did. That includes demanding regime change in Iraq, voting to invade Iraq, making racist remarks and engaging in voter fraud.

Those on the Left incessantly blame George W. Bush for the financial meltdown even though it was primarily Christopher Dodd, Barney Frank and Barack Obama, along with their congressional cronies, who forced the banks and lending institutions to give home loans to people who could barely afford to rent a cave. For good measure, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both of which had contributed generously to the campaign coffers of Obama, Frank and Dodd, turned a blind eye to the insane practice.

Can psychiatry be a science? See The New Yorker.

Here’s the Introduction (pdf) to Religion in American Politics: A Short History by Frank Lambert.

Is the bodily resurrection a later Christian invention?

Some skeptics of Christianity claim the doctrine of Christ’s physical resurrection from the dead was a later development, not something believed and proclaimed from the inception of Christianity. Others will admit that the doctrine was part of Christianity from its inception, but both groups claim the resurrection appearance pericopes that overtly stress the physicality of Jesus’ resurrection body were later inventions of the church. As evidence for this claim, they assert that our earliest gospels—Matthew and Mark—lack overt references to the physical nature of Christ’s resurrection. It is not until we come to the gospels of Luke and John that we find such pericopes. They hypothesize that in the latter half of the first century some Christians began proclaiming a non-physical resurrection of Christ, so Luke and John invented material to counter this teaching.

More.

Nicholas C. DiDonato: God Made Serpents: Addressing Evolutionary Theodicy via Analogy of Being here.