Policy Bites: Pragmatism and religious influences in government

When a parliamentarian's emotions, views, values, and beliefs affect their decision making, it matters. Of course, this is almost always the case. The human condition is the condition of an emotional being.

Evolutionary psychology, for all of its flaws, tells us that emotion and beliefs invariably influence our decision-making cognitive processes to some degree.

However, persons with healthy ratiocinative processes, and healthy epistemic rationality, know how to make decisions with this in mind. They adjust for emotional impetus appropriately. Similarly for certain kinds of beliefs.

Most people in the West would not consider a statement by Iran's Ayatollah about women's rights or foreign policy to be reasonable if those statements referred, as such statements from such sources usually do, to male domination and to jihad based upon Islamic megacult dogma like sharia law.

Most rational agents would consider it highly inappropriate for a parliamentarian, and especially an officeholder in a key ministerial position involving a defense or foreign affairs portfolio, to openly endorse consulting an imaginary alien, or some kind of fairytale elf or unicorn, or even some god character from one of the world's Eastern religions, such as Vishnu, or Zoraraster, when making decisions, or issuing parliamentary edicts, at a parliamentary or other authoritative podium.

Why should it be any different for Scott Morrison (Pentecostal megacult), Tony Abbott (Catholic megacult), Kevin Rudd (Anglican Megacult), John Howard (Methodist megacult), or any other theist with an imaginary omniscient friend?

It shouldn't.

An imaginary omniscient or god -like friend is an imaginary friend. Imaginary friends are not a sound and mentally stable element of any decision-making process that affects the lives of tens of millions of Australian citizens. This is especially so where such imaginary friends come attached to serious, dogmatic, biased, politically-charged, value-laden, and often downright bigoted doctrinal beliefs and imperatives. Arcane, archaic, pre-scientific doctrinal beliefs and imperatives.

Not only should churches have no influence over government policy on any basis associated with their supernaturalist doctrines and beliefs, but nor should religion broadly speaking. More importantly, persons with grandiose delusions of being personally or otherwise acquainted with some imperial, omniscient imaginary friend should not be relied upon, under any circumstances, to occupy the highest offices in the nation.

Imagine if one of the nations' leaders invoked the Christian megacult biblical character of Satan as part of their decision making processes and included references to said imaginary being in parliamentary statements. It would be little better if they invoked a unicorn that lived in their cupboard.

Yet - when a parliamentarian or Prime Minister invokes some omniscient imaginary god being, or, just as problematically - professes their faith in the concrete existence of such a being: it is somehow not regarded as dangerous, ridiculous, and indicative of a serious national security problem.

This is an obscenely ridiculous, and a dangerous, state of affairs.

There is little doubt that the government's willingness, and that of our Prime Minster, to direct our nation's armed forces to participate in warfare without the ratification of parliament and a majority of the Australian people, is emboldened (facilitated, even) on a social psychological level by delusional notions of authority given by some imaginary omniscient being.

Christian megacult doctrines are inherently dominionist, and even those not versed in specious theologies know that "god given" authority is believed by the faithful to trump all ther kinds of authority. It's well known that this conviction comes with biased and bigoted dogmatic moral and social values that belong to a pre-scientific, pre-feminist, and pre-technological era.

Scott Morrison's imaginary, omniscient friend cannot give him any authority to do anything to, or for, anyone. Only an appropriate, scientifically attuned, parliamentary process, and the assent of the Australian people, can be regarded as appropriate authority. When Scott Morrison or any other theist megacult Prime Minister defers to their faith - they are directly deferring to a wrong, and a clinically delusional, kind of 'authority'.

The Progress Party is pragmatic in its outlook. However pragmatism (which exists in various forms and formulations), like anything else, can be a recipe for political, social psychological, and social disaster. One can be a fanatical pragmatist who refuses to budge from their pragmatism even in the face of scientific evidence, or a fanatical centrist who refuses to get off the fence for any rational reason. A pragmatism, or a pragmatic secularism, about religion and fideistic megacult delusions that permits delusionals like Scott Morrison and Michael Pompeo to be highly paid pulbic servants in government office: such a pragmatism is irrational and unwise.

Some things – like imaginary omniscient beings – should be left for children to enjoy only. This is not at odds with a pragmatic and scientific world view. Not at all.

---