Nature Abhors a Vacuum

Ah, it's that facebook friend I have agreed to stop booing when all he wants is applause again.

This time, he posts a link to this story

This is just funny. How can we have an atheist country dominated by religion? Oh well, at least his child bride is hot.

My urge is to post a comment: is that a rhetorical question, or did you really want it answered?  I realize you don't like to have your statements challenged, but that does look suspiciously like a question.

Of course, the answer is --- well first, this is not what Gingrich said.  He said a secular, atheist country dominated by radical Islamists. Which are people, not a religion.  They also happen to be a particularly dangerous strain of people because they have a ~1,300 year history of imposing their religion on others at the tip of a sword.  If you don't share that religion, you convert, accept dihimitude, or die. 

The real answer, then, to the question "How can we have an atheist country dominated by religion?" is -- rather like a body that looses its immune system can be dominated by disease.

Nature abhors a vacuum.  When we, as a nation, lose the ability to discern good from evil by supposing that one man's evil is another man's good and vice versa - we stand for nothing.  

If we stand for nothing -- if we are not willing to defend our ideals -- remember that ideology itself is demonized in our new society -- a group with strong ideals and a willingness to impose them by force will come in and impose away.

That is what Gingrich is talking about, irrelevant comments about his  45-year-old "child" bride aside.

The person making this statement is 47.

For someone who is in favor of letting people use the government to re-define marriage as being between any two people, I find it rather odd that he would imply there is something wrong with a man marrying a woman 23 years younger than he is, but nonetheless two consenting adults.  And I take it as an insult, as my wife is 14 years older than I am.   See, it's apparently ok to take snarky jabs at people, as long as those people are ideologically opposed to yours and aren't members of a progressively-sanctioned Victim™ group.   Otherwise, you're ... oh what's that word?  Oh yeah.  Intolerant.